


The way you look

by spockats



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Academy Era, Angst with a Happy Ending, Domestic Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, OR IS IT, Pike is Jim's adoptive father and this is the hill i will die on, Pike is an amazing dad, Protective Spock (Star Trek), Trektober 2020 - prompt: caring for a child, Yes it is 2020 is already hard enough, jim is an amazing dad, really really small I promise, the briefest mentions of torture but nothing graphic, very brief mention of child trafficking but again nothing graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:35:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 50,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26770750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spockats/pseuds/spockats
Summary: Pike looked at Jim twirling his daughter in the air, her eyes just as blue as her dad’s, just as happy, just as free. Jim didn’t do things by half, not fatherhood and not love.And so Pike wondered. He wondered if someone would ever come and be enough to draw Jim out his shell again. He wondered if someone would ever be worthy of their family, of his godson’s heart.And then Spock came.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/OFC (mentions), James T. Kirk/Spock
Comments: 123
Kudos: 665
Collections: A Labyrinth of Fics, Trektober 2020





	1. Chapter 1

Spock pressed the entrance request buzzer to Captain Pike’s office. 

“Who is it?”

“It is Spock.”

The door opened and he stepped inside. Captain Pike’s office was filled with decorative objects seemingly unlinked to each other. The resulting appearance of his shelves was rather dishevelled and unpleasing to the eye. It was a sharp contrast to the care and harmony by which he had organised his personal quarters and ready-room on the Enterprise. It spoke loudly of the man’s preference for his life onboard to his life on Terra.

“Commander,” the Captain greeted him, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Unfortunately, this is no pleasurable business, Captain.” Spock’s colleagues had not recommended this course of action, though Spock had not been actively seeking their input when they had voiced their opinions. He had simply happened upon their conversation on the subject in the Linguistic Staff Break Room, in a moment when he had been pondering over it himself. The resulting discussion had revealed that the issue was graver than Spock had imagined, and therefore must be submitted to the relevant authorities.

“Well, let’s get it out of the way, then. Sit,” he said, nodding to one of the two chairs facing his desk, “please.”

Spock sat. He had elaborated multiple possible approaches to what he believed could be a potentially sensitive subject and he had settled for a reasonable scheme. Now though, under the Captain’s clear gaze, he found himself doubting his decision. Christopher Pike was a reasonable man, yet he had already behaved illogically when faced with the misconducts of Cadet James Tiberius Kirk. Spock did not believe that Captain Pike would penalise him for having spoken against the Cadet like his peers had suggested. He was aware of such behaviours and nepotism being habitual to many superior officers on campus, Christopher Pike was not among them. However, he had often shown strong affection for the boy. A rational perspective might not be as effective as he had calculated, for the Captain might approach the situation with heavily clouded judgment.

“A Cadet of the command track has broken several rules of conduct in the last months,” Spock said, settling for an anonymous approach. “I have spoken with seven Professors who have reported frequent tardiness to their lectures, several absences, and several occasions where the individual violated the classroom code of conduct regarding the use of COMM devices. Furthermore, they have exited classrooms mid-lectures without offering any explanation nor providing a signed permission from a recognised member of staff. They have done it in my class this morning and no justification note has reached my office as of yet.”

“Huh,” Captain Pike said, his tone void of emotional connotations. “Let me guess, their name is James Kirk.”

“…Indeed, Sir. I believed it best to present the matter to you, since filed complaints do not seem to be working.”

“You filed a complaint against him? Wait, why am I asking, it’s protocol, of course you did. How many, beside yours?”

“Three, Sir.”

“All right. I was afraid this would happen. Jim promised me it wouldn’t, but he’s very good at shouldering too much and dislocating his shoulders before even thinking of asking for help.” _Jim_. A personal nickname. It increased the chance that the Captain was indeed emotionally compromised and could very likely not offer an objective solution, rendering this meeting senseless.

“A curious metaphor, Sir.”

“Listen, I’ll talk to him. He’s not slacking off, I promise, he’s- His life isn’t simple, that’s all.” The Captain sighed and passed both his hands over his face. Spock recognised it a sign of distress. If he pressed now, the probability of further rendering this meeting useless was high.

“Very well, Sir.”

“Please, I know it’s a lot to ask and it would be bending the rules a little, but don’t file a complaint again before talking to me? Or him? He’s hard to reach, I know, I can ask him to put you on his emergency contacts so you can-“

The Captain was interrupted by the sudden opening of the door. Both he and Spock turned on instinct, drawing their phasers against the person who had just hacked one of Starfleet’s most secure locks, only to be faced by none other than Cadet Kirk, dishevelled and sweaty, breathing heavily as he raised his hands in the air and bent down in fatigue, panic and anxiety swirling out him in waves that grated at Spock’s shields.  
“Sorry,” he panted, “Chris, I’m so sorry, I know I promised I wouldn’t do this again and I never will, I swear to you, never-“

“What’s happening, Jim?” Captain Pike asked, his voice calm and his phaser already pocketed, to Spock’s surprise. He would not even reprimand the Cadet for hacking his door, breaking seventeen regulations all at once, and risking his life by barging inside a highly trained officer’s office. His emotional involvement ran more deeply than Spock had believed it did.

“I can’t find her,” Kirk said, his voice trembling, causing Spock to frown. He had lost someone? It did not surprise him. “I looked everywhere, I COMM-ed the Vulcan Embassy, her school, her gym, her teachers, her trainers and all the libraries she could reach by foot, and nobody has seen her.”

School and teachers? Had someone mistakingly and tragically hired this irresponsible Cadet believing him a reliable child caretaker, and had he just revealed he had lost the child and not contacted the relevant authorities? And why would the Vulcan Embassy be involved? No Vulcanshu would ever consciously put their child in the care of a man with Cadet’s Kirk criminal and civilian record.

“All right, Jim, calm-“

“What if something happened to her?!” Cadet Kirk exclaimed, interrupting a superior officer, showing no signs of intending to salute or stand at attention, and breaking five more regulations. “Bones is checking and COMM-ing all of the hospitals and she’s not there! What if someone took her? She might have been kidnapped to be sold in some Orion market and I just can’t-“

“JIM! Calm down now, Cadet, and shut up!”

Very surprisingly, James Kirk fell silent, though his eyes retained all of their nervous energy and his body did not stop trembling. Spock opened his mouth to suggest calling a medic in the office to administer a mild sedative, when the Captain spoke again.

“Now, tell me slowly, Jim: what happened? Start from the beginning.”

“I was at Xenolinguistics 103 this morning when the school COMM-ed me. It was around 1030 and-“

“1027 and twenty seconds,” Spock corrected, remembering the exact time the COMM had pinged and his confusion when James Kirk had not apologised, but rather started collecting his belongings and preparing to leave. The Cadet’s eyes flew to him as if he had just noticed his presence inside the room, and briefly widened in panic. Illogical, of course. Captain Pike was in charge and he did not seem eager to punish him, but rather willing to listen; Spock had no power nor permission to further discipline or chastise him. Unfortunately, it did not hold: he looked back at Captain Pike with a resigned expression, his fear forgotten.

“Does he have to stay here?” he asked, interrupting his explanation.

“Professor and Lieutenant Commander Spock is a Vulcan, Jim. He’s also the son to the Vulcan’s Terra Ambassador and he might be the only Vulcan on this planet willing to help you in this shitshow of a day. Continue.”

Cadet Kirk hesitated for two point eight seconds, his eyes scared as they rapidly moved between the Captain and Spock, then looked on the ground and resumed his explanation. “So, the school COMM-ed at 1027, saying that I needed to come in because Jazz had been involved in a fight again and they needed all the parents to come in ASAP. I was worried but not a lot because it’s, like, the fifth time this year that it happens, so I hurried out and got an emergency transport to be there before the other parents so that bitch at reception wouldn’t call social services on me again-she did, by the way, so there’s that problem too. 

“But when I got there they told me she had gone to the bathroom ten minutes before and hadn’t come out yet, so I waited like, ten minutes, to give her space, and when panic set in and I went inside to check, she wasn’t there.” Kirk took a deep breath and raised his gaze to the Captain, his eyes wet. “Bones and I have been searching all day, we’ve looked everywhere and I don’t know what to do. Social services are looking and the police won’t start until we hit the twelve hour mark, but I just can’t shake this idea that something really bad happened and-“

“Okay, Jim, okay, I get it. We’ll help you. I’ll gather all the available security officers to check cameras around the city for her. Is the Vulcan Embassy looking too?”

The Cadet nodded, still shaking significantly. Spock could not be certain if the child was his or only entrusted to him - his words had been ambiguous and placed the chances around eighty-nine point seven-eight-three percent - though, whatever the case, he could clearly understand the urgency of the situation. He would assist them to the best of his abilities. Afterwards, if the child was truly Vulcan, he would personally see to it that they were placed under better tutelage.

“Spock, can you please assemble a team of security officers to check all security camera tapes of this area of the city-“ the Captain brought up a map of San Francisco on his desk screen and quickly drew a circle around the Vulcan Embassy, raging twenty kilometres, “-for this person?”

Spock watched as the Captain opened an ID tab and swirled it around, pushing it towards him. The name _T’rou S’hchetnou Jasmine_ was accompanied by a Vulcan date, place of birth and passport information, together with a Terra address of residence and the face reconstruction of an eight year old girl. She did not have Cadet’s Kirk surname, though he himself had taken his father’s name together with his Vulcan heritage, and it made him no less the son of Amanda Grayson. She did, however, share his unique human eye colour. Their irises looked so similar that Spock was confident into placing the chances of Kirk being the girl’s biological parent to ninety-nine point seven-three-one percent. The deep and lively blue was unmistakable. 

“Yes, Sir,” Spock said, moving the information to his PADD. Even if the child was indeed Kirk’s, he still would contact the Embassy. The Vulcan parent of the child would certainly take action themselves when faced with the day’s event, he would make sure they were informed properly.

“Great, thank you, Spock. Jim, what do you want to do? Watch the tapes or go out looking some more?”

Cadet Kirk did not hesitate. “I’ll go mad if I have to stay still one more second, Chris,” he said, “are you- are you coming to look with me?”

“Of course, kid. Where do you want to look? Is there anywhere you didn’t check?”

“I called the aquarium and botanical gardens and they said they didn’t see her, but she’s good at hiding, so-“

“We’ll go there immediately,” Captain Pike said, “we’ll use the Officers’ Emergency transporter and beam there directly. Oh, Spock? Check the beaming transport stations too, please, will you?”

“Of course, Sir. Can I offer any more of my assistance?”

“I can’t think of anything else.” Captain Pike took his uniform jacket from the chair and put it on swiftly. “Jim?”

“No,” Cadet Kirk murmured, looking at Spock with anxious surprise, “thank you, Professor.”

“COMM me immediately if you find anything, Spock,” Captain Pike added. “Dismissed.”

“Sir,” Spock saluted, then quickly walked out of the door, taking his COMM unit from his pocket. “To all security personnel available on campus, this is Lieutenant Commander Spock, gather at HeadQuarters civilian security room 3.” 

The child had not entered a single camera feed for the entire morning. Spock had mapped a pedestrian route of all the areas around the school building to check for possible blind spots, and had not found any. It was worrisome. Cadet Kirk’s theory that the girl’s disappearance might be linked to organised crime was becoming statistically stronger every minute. He had relayed the information to Captain Pike, who had sounded far more worried than he had in his office, hours before. 

The city police department would start the searches at 2308, in two hours time.

If Spock revealed his suspicions that the disappearance might be a kidnapping, they would start immediately. 

He therefore decided to beam to the Vulcan Embassy. They had security tapes of better quality and range which they had not shared with Starfleet but were willing to show to him. It was highly likely that this open disposition was due to his father’s influence and not the emergency of the situation, though it did not matter. They had also assured him that two Vulcan security officers from the school had already visioned them. Spock, however, remembered very well how many times Vulcan security officers had missed his own presence on their security cameras when he had run from home. T’rou S’hchetnou Jasmine was hybrid like himself, and probably subjected to the same discrimination he had been; Spock was not willing to leave the chance of a prejudicial overlook open.

“Spock,” a woman at the reception desk called after he stepped off the transporter, her hand raised in a flawless ta’al. Spock reciprocated. “The security officers await your arrival in the conference room number 7.”

Spock nodded and proceeded to the stairs. He had spent long hours walking around the Embassy when he had been a child, waiting for his father to finish his duties. The memories were not entirely pleasant. 

The interiors were well decorated and clean, carrying almost no smell, a relief to Vulcan’s sensitive olfactory system which was harshly assaulted by the chaotic and uncontrolled world of the Humans. He remembered how stepping inside the Embassy had always made him less nauseated, though the relief stopped there. 

The prejudice on Vulcan was little compared to the prejudice on Terra. It was logical, when analysed now: the Vulcanshu staff at the Embassy lived closely to a much looser culture, interacting with it on a daily basis, and therefore had opted to engrain themselves deeper into their interpretation of Surak’s principles as a defence.

Spock’s hybrid nature had been the object of much disdain. He represented the union the staff did not wish to complete. Very few individuals had been fair to him, those days. A few Ambassadors working with his father had behaved neutrally in what he believed had been an attempt to earn his favour and advance in their career. 

The archive staff had been kind to him. He had often used their cabinets to hide away from the judgemental gazes following in the corridors, waiting out the hours with his PADD, a stylus and free access to the archives. They had never revealed his behaviour to his father.

The security feeds showed no sign of the child. Spock found he did not wish to communicate his finding to Captain Pike. Cadet Kirk, despite having showed several irresponsible behaviours, was not to blame; his child had disappeared while under the care of the Vulcan School of SF. The panic displayed in Captain’s Pike office had shown that he must care for her, too. 

Spock called the local police station and revealed his findings. Then, he informed Captain Pike. 

“Nothing at all?” he asked, “Are you sure, Spock?”

“I am afraid not, Sir.”

“Beaming stations?”

“Nothing as of yet, Sir. The detectives are looking into it right now.”

“All right, thank you, Spock. I think… I think Jim and I will keep looking. I don’t think he’s ready to give up yet. But you can go home, don’t worry. You’ve been of great help.”

“It has been no burden, Sir.” Spock shifted his thumb over the closing. “If I may, Sir, I believe I should stay here and be present for the statements of the teachers and staff, in case there are details they did not reveal to Cadet Kirk.”

“Such as?”

“Even if he is father to a Vulcan child, Cadet Kirk is not Vulcanshu. The Embassy will not involve him if they believe his input detrimental to their image, and they might blame him exceedingly for their belief in the fallacy of human nature. It is best that a neutral party is present.”

“…okay. I’ll pretend I didn’t just hear something that sounded a lot like ‘because they’re racists’, Spock.”

“I used no such words, Sir. You agree, then?”

“Yeah, Jim will probably appreciate finally having someone on his side in that hell of a place. Thank you, Spock.”

“Goodbye, Sir.”

Spock was told by the receptionist that the policemen and detectives would arrive in one hour. Vulcans do not lie, though Spock called the station and asked them to confirm the ETA. They did. 

There was a human-owned Vulcan specialities restaurant five minutes away by feet. They had an acceptable assortment of plomeek soups and the Vulcan clientele was scarce since they tended to eat at Vulcanshu-owned restaurants. The best plan for his next hour of waiting was finding sustenance and revising Vulcan and Human law over child tutelage and assistance. 

Instead, Spock walked up the stairs again. The archivists that he had known in his childhood were not on Terra anymore, and even if they had been, their work hours had terminated at 1800. Still, he found himself wishing to visit their floor anyway. Nostalgia was a human weakness, one he was apparently victim of too, and there was no reason for him not to shift his plans of ten minutes to allow himself this one comfort. He would still manage to eat and review the documents.

The floor plan had not changed and neither had the decorations. Vulcans did not see the logic into changing the physical appearance of their buildings and offices just for the aesthetic, their work productivity did not change whether the wall was blue or white. Therefore, all was the same. Spock could see the wearing of the carpets where many feet had walked to and from offices and stairs, the slightly fainter colour of the walls, though nothing else was different. All was as he remembered.

The floor was empty and silent. Spock walked between the corridors, allowing certain memories to surface, repressing others. He had no destination nor goal in mind other than pure exploration, and yet his feet brought him to the wooden door at the end of the east-wing’s second corridor, hidden from view by an antique Vulcan wooden cabinet that, if nobody had changed it, should hold incense for meditation. When Spock pushed it aside, the smell of the spices swirled in the air, confirming his theory, bringing forward several memories of himself, smaller and younger, doing the same.

He had hidden there so often, he could perfectly recall every inch of the room, every noise it made, every scent. His hand hesitated on the knob. He had cried beyond that door. He had laughed. He had sat still and immobile until his legs were filled with the pain of decreased blood flow, drawing monsters and creatures from fantasy alone. How lonely had he been, how angry. He had closed his eyes times and times again, his fists pressing against his orbs, wishing his fantasy worlds to absorb him, to take him and welcome him, so he would never have to exit the room again.

He turned the knob and pulled the door, waiting for the onslaught of memories with a firm grip on his shields, waiting for the wooden floor to be revealed to him, the indentation his body had left still there to meet him.

Instead, he was met with two wide, scared blue orbs.

Spock and T’rou S’hchetnou Jasmine stared at each other in silence for eight point six seconds, the girl’s eyes looking progressively worried, until they suddenly filled with annoyance.

“You do not work here.”

Spock was so startled by the similarity of the girl’s expression to Cadet Kirk’s own arrogant gaze that he did not speak.

“I will not report you if you close the door now and move the cabinet back where it was,” she said. She had spots of dirt on her skin and clothes, dried blood around her nose and a significant bruise on her left cheekbone. Other than that, she appeared perfectly fine.

Spock raised an eyebrow. “You are T’rou S’hchetnou Jasmine.”

Her eyes were incredibly expressive. Too expressive. Spock could perfectly see her surprise in hearing her name and her evasiveness as she looked at him and the corridor behind him for a way to run. He could also perfectly see how those human eyes must have earned her scorn and ridicule, like his own had earned him.

“You are S’chn T’gai Spock,” she said, “the son of Ambassador Sarek and Amanda Grayson.”

Spock imagined himself, young and scared, being found and questioned by a stranger while hiding in his room. He would not have reacted positively. He was acutely aware of his COMM in his pocket and the amount of resources that were being wasted each second he did not use it to communicate his finding. He was also acutely aware of the girl’s defensive pose. Of his own past fear and pain when he had been the one hiding behind this door.

“I am,” he said, and knelt on the floor.

“You teach my father,” she added, her tone neutral but her eyes highly accusing.

“I do.”

“Did he send you to look for me?”

“No,” Spock said. Cadet Kirk had not asked him to help with the search, Captain Pike had. Spock had not opened the door while searching, he had opened it for his own reasons. Vulcans do not lie, though they can omit.

“Then why are you here?”

“I used to hide here when I was a child. I wished to see if the room had changed.”

“That’s… completely illogical!”

“Is it?” Spock asked, imitating his mother’s words, the ones that had always worked with him. “I had not noticed. Do you intend to tell someone? Please do not, I have an important reputation to uphold.”

The girl studied him for three point two seconds before shaking her head, a very human gesture she had surely picked up from her father. “Are people looking for me?”

“They are. I also believe that your father must be very worried. You have been missing for several hours.”

“Is he angry? Did you see him?”

“I saw him four hours and thirty seven minutes ago. He was aggravated and feared significantly for your safety. I wish to COMM him and reassure him you are well. May I?”

She retreated against the wall, her eyes blaring an angry light that told Spock he had been too hasty with his approach.“Why do you ask me? You will call him even if I say no.”

Spock took the COMM device out of his pocket, pretending not to see the fearful way she looked at it, and put it on the ground between them. “I will not.”

It took her two minutes and twelve seconds to reach a decision, staring alternatively between the device and Spock. “Okay,” she said, looking away and hugging her torso with her arms, “call him.”

Spock picked it up and rapidly COMM-ed Captain Pike’s number.

“Spock? Anything new?”

“T’rou S’hchetnou Jasmine is with me, Sir, safe and sound.”

“She is? It’s really her, are you sure?”

“I am here, Uncle Chris,” the girl said, before Spock could say he was.

“Jasmine!” Captain Pike exclaimed, his voice thin, then said louder: “Jim? Jim! Spock found her! She’s on the COMM!”

Rapid steps, the noise of the device being passed to another hand, then Cadet Kirk’s voice, full of trepidation. “Jazz? Are you there, pumpkin?”

“I am here, dad.”

“Oh, thank God,” the Cadet said, his voice filled with palpable relief, “are you all right? Where are you? What happened?”

“I am well,” she said, and offered no more than that. 

Spock filled the silence. “We are on the third floor of the Vulcan Embassy, east wing, second corridor. We shall wait for you here. Are you allowed entrance?”

Cadet Kirk and Captain Pike arrived in seven minutes and thirty two seconds. Spock had not yet managed to convince the girl to exit the room, but he should not have worried: the moment their steps were audible, she stood up and ran out on unsteady legs. Spock looked as Cadet Kirk turned the corner and immediately focused on her form, breaking into a run and meeting her two point seven meters from Spock’s position. He fell harshly to the ground on his knees and immediately welcomed her into his arms, hugging her to his body and hiding his face on the top of her head.

“I can’t believe you’re okay,” he was whispering, “I was so worried, so worried all day that something had happened to you, I’m so glad you’re okay.”

Spock observed, fascinated and impressed, as the girl accepted a hug he himself would have refused by pride alone at her age.

Then, Captain Pike appeared, followed by two Vulcanshus and two human police officers, and she suddenly pushed away, putting several centimetres between herself and her father. 

Kirk’s eyes dimmed and saddened with the acceptance of a man used to such refusals, and he did not try to reach for her again, despite the pain oozing out of his skin in waves, hitting Spock’s shields harshly. Spock wondered if that same look had been in his mother’s eyes when he had refused her affections over and over again. He too had found comfort in his human parent but had refused it for pride, for the prejudice thrown against him and the hurtful words of his peers. His mother had never forced him, taking what little she could when he allowed it, never letting her sadness aggravate him.

“Jasmine,” Kirk said, his voice calm, “you can’t run away like this. So many people have been looking for you all day, we were all so worried. What if someone had grabbed you on the streets while you were alone? Why did you run? I was coming to get you, sweetie, why did you escape?”

The girl kept her silence, as Spock had expected her to. He had been under similar lines of questioning himself and he knew that the true answer was something that could not be voiced by a Vulcanshu. Fear. Loneliness. Sadness. The knowledge that he would always be misunderstood and misjudged. The weight of a social construct that constricted his chest.

The knowledge of his father coming to know of his misconducts, of his mistreatments, and the knowledge that he would do nothing but lecture him to behave more logically. His father, though, had never held a gaze so worried and sad. He had never knelt to Spock’s level as Kirk was doing. He had never admitted he was worried for Spock’s safety.

“We’ll talk about this, okay? No punishments. I’m not mad, I promise, I just want to understand why you felt like the only solution was running away. I need to know that if this ever happens again, you’ll call me before doing something that can put you into so much danger.”

Spock wanted to intervene. Kirk was saying the right things, the things he had himself wished to hear so many years ago, though he was doing so in the wrong place. Kirk looked up desperately as his daughter kept her silence, and only then seemed to notice he had an audience.

“Could we have some privacy, please?”

Spock saw the denial in the Vulcanshu guards’ eyes and intervened before they could speak. “You can relocate to my father’s office.”

“Spock,” one of the guards said, “the Ambassador’s office contains classified documents which can not-“

“James T. Kirk is a remarkable Starfleet Cadet used to being privy to sensitive information. His daughter is Vulcanshu and understands the importance of legal privacy. I am sure they can be trusted.” Both Kirk and his daughter turned to look at him in surprise. 

“Unfortunately, trust does not hold against rules and legislation, which impede any stranger or non-diplomatic individual from entering the Amb-“

“What if Spock comes in too, so he can keep an eye on us?” Kirk asked, after looking several times between his daughter and Spock. “Would that be okay?”

“Perfectly acceptable,” Spock said, anticipating yet again another denial, “and perfectly logical. I will personally make sure there is no visible sensitive documentation. I am certain my father will agree and commend this decision once I relay the events to him tonight, on our weekly video-call. I will include your names, so he can personally thank you for your service the next time he is called here.”

“Very well,” the guard spoke, after a pause. “We will-“

“Accompany me to take a statement for the officers here,” Captain Pike said, smiling jovially and leaving no room for arguments. “I’m sure they need the Embassy and the School’s versions of the events. Especially the part where a child managed to escape the school unsupervised and enter the Embassy unseen while you were on service. Don’t you, officers?”

“Yes, Captain, absolutely.”

“Very well, then. After you.”

After the Captain and the officers had turned the corner behind the two reluctant Vulcan guards, Kirk reached out to his daughter again. He slowly raised a hand, studying her face, and placed it gently on her cheek. She pressed against it almost immediately, without hesitation. He turned her head slightly, pressing his lips while observing the bruise on her face. Then, he smiled, openly and calmly, hiding his pain from her.

Yes. Kirk might be the most irresponsible Cadet Spock had ever taught, and he had a criminal record longer than all of the other cadets’ combined, but he appeared to be a decent parent.

“Are you all right with this too, Jaz? Him being with us?”

“He is fine,” she said.

“Okay,” Kirk smiled, “let’s go then.” 

He stood up swiftly and adjusted his uniform with questionable results, then held his hand out to his daughter. Spock watched, fascinated and surprised, as she took it willingly, tightening her hand in his and looking up as if daring him to say anything against doing something intimate in public.

“This way,” Spock said, and started leading them to his father’s office.

Once there, he made sure to lock the door behind them, then invited them to sit. 

Kirk settled in one of the two chairs facing the desk and Jasmine climbed on his lap without hesitation, hiding her face in his neck and curling into his arms. Spock, realising he was intruding on a private exchange, looked away and took out his PADD, going to stand near one of the windows to work and give them space. He could not manage to focus, though. The familiarity and easiness with which Kirk and Jasmine embraced each other in the same room where many of Spock’s memories were linked to sadness and anger was… overwhelming. On that same chair he had sat for hours of lectures and discussions, teachers and tutors talking over his head about his emotionality, his behavioural problems, his hybridity. And his father had sat opposite to him, silent, his face void of any emotions, a lecture forming in his own mind, ready to be imparted to Spock’s broken heart after they were done with their complaints, his voice as dry as the pages of the books that surrounded them on the shelves.

Instead, there James T. Kirk sat, a man Spock had considered rash, arrogant, and irresponsible just thirteen minutes and twenty-three seconds before. There he sat, holding his daughter and offering her comfort, asking her the right questions and rightfully taking her side, his body buzzing with waves of comforting energy meant solely for her.

What would Spock’s life had been, had his father loved him like that?

“I am sorry I ran and worried you, dad. I will not run again, I promise.”

“It’s okay, pumpkin, I understand why you did. Thank you for promising that. I’ll talk to your teachers and make sure they never blame you unfairly again, all right? Or, if you want, we can change schools. It’s always a possibility, you know that, right?”

Spock’s fingers tightened over his PADD. It’s okay, I understand. I’ll talk to your teachers and make sure. Gentle words entwining with Sarek’s silence, his heavy gaze, his disappointment. Spock was relieved when his thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door, and rapidly walked to answer before it could break the perfect bubble of affection Kirk had created for his child.

“Who is it?”

“Christopher,” Captain Pike said. Spock turned and met Kirk’s eyes, waited for his small nod before opening the door.

“Hey, Jazz!” Captain Pike said cheerfully, “Do you fancy coming down with me for a few minutes? The officers need to ask you some questions. Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble and I’ll be there sitting right next to you.”

“Can dad come too?”

“No, sorry. They need to see you separately. You can say no, sweetie, we’ll find a way around it.”

“I will come,” she said, but didn’t move away from her father.

“Jim,” Captain Pike said, “are you ready to let her go?”

“Yeah,” Kirk murmured, “yeah, sorry.” He gently kissed the crown of her head and then slowly opened his arms. “If we’re not overstaying our welcome and I’m not bothering Commander Spock, I’ll wait right here for you, okay? Otherwise Chris will take you to wherever I am.”

“You are welcome to stay, Cadet.”

“Right here, then,” Kirk said, smiling. “Go on, it’s all right. Uncle Chris will be with you.”

The girl went, walking closely to the Captain, and the door closed behind them. Kirk sighed heavily, visibly deflating, leaning his head back and closing his eyes. 

Spock was about to offer him a cup of tea when he straightened back up, his eyes tired and unfocused.

“This probably won’t help your opinion of me, huh?” Kirk said, passing a hand over his face. 

Spock opened his mouth to state that no, on the contrary, his opinion had changed dramatically for the better, when he was surprised again.

“Thank you so much, Sir. For finding her and being nice to her as you waited. When you defended us, she looked at you like you were one of her comic-book superheroes. I don’t know what you told her, but… thank you. I’ve never met a Vulcanshu who was nice to her like that. And sorry for having barged out of your class this morning. I totally deserved the complaint, I’ll do whatever extra credits you deem fit to make it up.”

Many possible answers swirled in Spock’s mind. That he was not completely Vulcanshu, therefore he understood. That kindness needed no thanking. That Kirk’s behaviour had been more than justified and he regretted having filed the complaint. 

“That is unnecessary,” he said, without specifying what. Kirk would probably assume it was about the extra credits and accept it.

Surprising him again, the Cadet studied him for long seconds, his eyes curious, then looked down and smiled sadly. “Thanks are never unnecessary,” he said. “And I don’t mind the extra credit. Fair is fair, I don’t want the special treatment just because I have a kid. That’s why… that’s why I didn’t tell anyone but Chris. Well, that and because I didn’t want to get more attention than I already have because of my dad.”

Yes, George Kirk. A man who cast a great shadow. Spock had heard more than one professor mention James Kirk only as George Kirk’s son, and not as his own person, despite the remarkable academic record he carried. A record that became much more remarkable when understanding that he had kept his marks in the top ninety-ninth percentile despite having a child to care for. Looking at these premises, Spock was sure the Cadet would manage to escape it, and cast a great shadow of his own.

“I will ponder on it,” he said. He did not need an assistant, nor he believed into assigning more homework as punishment for misbehaviour. 

“I helped some people of your freshman Vulcan class study from time to time, I could do tutoring.”

“The freshmen Vulcan class is more advanced than the Vulcan section of the Xenolinguistics class, which we have not even started” Spock said, curious, “why did they ask your help?”

“ _I speak decently_ ,” Kirk said in Vulcan, both his accent and grammar flawless, “ _I learned for Jasmine in case she needed help with her homework or if she wanted to speak Vulcan at home_.”

“You speak impressively well, Cadet,” Spock said, “why have you not tested out of the section?”

“I don’t have any certificate and I wanted to have one in case I need it for career advancements. So, I took the complete class, Vulcan included.”

“Tutoring would be acceptable,” Spock said. Admiral Archer had often called him to his office regarding many complaints from the freshmen that his class was too difficult. Assigning them a tutor would be an effective way to make him cease. “Are you sure you can take the necessary time? It would include three hours lectures every week and one or two meetings with me to review and agree on the content.”

“Yeah. I’m taking this class, _History of Borg music_ , which is completely useless, and I’m only keeping it in my plan because of a dare. I’ll drop it and just buy bones a beer.”

Spock chose not to start a discussion over the propriety of choosing classes for the Command Track Senior year over dares and bets. Instead, he asked a question he had been pondering over since Kirk had barged into Pike’s office that afternoon. “Bones?”

“Oh, yeah, Dr. Leonard McCoy. He’s a senior like me, I call him Bones. Long story.”

Silence fell between them as Spock pondered his next words.

“My current opinion of you, Cadet Kirk, is very high. Your daughter is fortunate to have you.”

“I thought Vulcans don’t believe in luck,” Kirk said.

“We are indeed in luck, then, that I am only half Vulcan.”

  
⎔

  
“Hi.” 

“Cadet Kirk,” Spock said, surprised, “how did you gain access to the teachers’ lounge?”

“I hacked the door,” Kirk said, completely unbothered. Spock raised an eyebrow. “Yes, sorry, bad habit, I know. It’s not completely against the rules though, because since you made me a tutor I’ve been registered as a Student Teacher, maybe by accident or maybe not, I didn’t really understand, so I technically have access to teachers’ facilities, but I lost my pass. Or Bones stole it because I told him of Professor J’Kiwa’s stash of Andorian ale, I don’t know. Probably not though, cause I’m pretty sure he’s shacking up with Gaila, and she can hack pretty much anything so-“ 

“Cadet,” Spock reprimanded him.

“Right, sorry! I’m here because I need to ask you something. If that’s all right. Sir.”

One week had passed since that night at the Vulcan Embassy. Kirk had enthusiastically accepted his tutor role and he had been perfectly punctual and professional at all four meetings Spock had set up. He had tested nearly at the level of a native speaker and had easily learned and processed all the lecture plans Spock had sent him. It was highly impressive.

On the downside, Cadet Kirk had somehow decided to trust Spock. 

That included positive sides, like COMM messages where he revealed that he would not be attending Xenolinguistics because of a doctor appointment for his daughter or a similar parenting-related reasons, not leaving Spock in the dark and forcing him to ask Captain Pike about the Cadet’s whereabouts.

It also included negative sides. Cadet Kirk had initiated the habit of talking freely, not holding back even on the activities that sounded very close to breaking campus rules. It was a repetitive game. Spock reprimanded him and reminded him that he could file a complaint, Kirk found a loophole for which the activity had not been completely against the rules. 

His evening meditation hours had increased of thirty-seven percent just to make up for the irritation.

“Since you are here, Cadet, it would be illogical not to ask.”

“Okay, so, Jasmine has been having some trouble meditating since last week. She didn’t want to ask her teachers for help, and I am obviously useless, and I totally wouldn’t bother you on your break, except we’re not meeting until tomorrow and she also has an important Classical Mechanics test tomorrow morning, so she asked me if I could ask you if you were willing to help her. Like, this afternoon. Or tonight. Or at night, I mean whenever you’re free. If you’re willing. No obligations whatsoever! It’s because she says that she’ll focus better on the test if she can meditate, and she trusts you, because you’re really nice, so- You know what, I’ll stop talking.”

Spock raised his eyebrow again.

“Yeah, sorry. I’ve had way too much caffeine. Shit, I’m an idiot.” His gaze turned horrified and his hand flew to his mouth. “Fuck, did I just say shit in front of you? Oh man, did I just say-“

“I will be glad to help,” Spock said, interrupting what was surely another confusing monologue.

“You will? Oh, thank you so much. Sir! Thank you so much, Sir. What time is most convenient to you? Jasmine gets out of school at 1630 and I usually get out of here at 1620 and go get her by car and then-“

“Meet me in my office at 1615,” Spock said, “My last lecture ends at 1600. I will come with you to the school.”

“Great! Perfect, thank you so much again!” Kirk exclaimed with a big smile, then moved to walk away.

“Cadet?”

“Yes?”

“Next time you need to talk to me urgently, you can use my COMM number, which I believe has been saved in your PADD and COMM devices since you started working for me. There is no need to hack any more doors.”

“Right,” Kirk whispered, frowning and looking at the ground. “Why did I not think of the COMM?”

“Perhaps it is best if I drive, later today.”

“Mh? Oh yeah, sure. Great idea, actually. I’ll go get a chamomille, maybe it can fight the caffeine or something.”

Spock had believed Captain Pike irrational and unprofessional for his fondness for Cadet Kirk just eight days before. Now, watching the man walking to the replicator to carry out the improbable theory of eliminating caffeine from his bloodstream through the ingestion of herbal tea, Spock found himself letting go of the revelation that he had hacked the door and lost a very important pass chip, letting go of the way he forgot to address him with rank, letting go of the accidental foul words that had eluded his control in his frenzy. 

Instead, he observed him as he sent a warm greeting to Professor J’Kiwa and walked swiftly to the door, throwing Spock one last smile before disappearing, a hot cup of tea in his hand, and a warm feeling blossoming in Spock’s chest at the sight. 

Minutes appeared interminable as he worked the hours between their meeting and 1615. When Cadet Kirk appeared at his door, Spock had already collected his belongings and worn his jacket.

“Hey there,” he said, “no change of mind?”

“I do not believe Vulcan brain transplants can occur in four hours with complete patient recovery,” Spock answered, “therefore, that is an illogical inquiry.”

Kirk paused and looked at him with widened eyes. “Did you just totally slam me?”

“I do not believe I just threw you against a solid surface, no.”

The Cadet scoffed, smiling openly and breaking into a laugh. “You did! Gosh, you’re funny! I should have known. It’s always the silent geniuses who have the best sense of humour.”

“I have no idea to what you are referring, Cadet.”

“Of course you don’t, Sir.” Kirk stepped outside before him and turned his head when Spock inserted his locking code. Senseless, since he was surely able to hack it and open it nevertheless and therefore knowing the code did not matter, but polite. “Oh, by the way, the chamomile? Bad idea. Now I’m half asleep but very alert and with fine tremors. Watch!”

When Spock turned, Kirk’s hands were extended and they were indeed visibly shaken by fine continuous tremors. “That is… worrisome.”

“I’ll be fine,” Kirk said cheerfully and handed him a card key. “You said you’d drive, right?”

During the drive, Spock had experienced doubts over the idea of accompanying Kirk to pick up his daughter from school, fearing he might be overstepping the child’s boundaries. He had had the opportunity of further deepening his acquaintance with Kirk, though he had only seen the girl once, on a day that had been significantly traumatic for her. 

Moreover, Cadet Kirk had advanced a simple invitation for a meditative session, he had not implied that it would have to happen at his residence nor that Spock would be involved further in his daughter’s life. He was evaluating whether or not he should offer to drive to the school and then leave them to their habits and privacy, when Kirk spoke.

“Are you all right?”

Spock did not turn to look him for purely safety reasons, nothing else.

“I am within acceptable existing parameters,” he said. There was no need to clarify further. Spock was a Vulcan, and was used to keeping external appearance neutral at all times. Cadet Kirk might be empathic, though not enough to discern emotional details from Spock’s appearance, keeping his focus away from its righteous objective: his daughter. If the girl appeared unhappy at Spock’s presence, he would find a logical excuse to leave. He could-

“Yep, you’re upset,” Cadet Kirk said. Spock took his eyes away from the road in surprise, focusing on Kirk. “When you’re fine, you say just that, that you’re fine. Which is a bit unfair, because I told you I was fine Wednesday evening when I was a little sleepy and you started that whole ‘fine has variable definitions, fine is unacceptable’ thingy.”

No Human, nor Vulcanshu in many years, had been able to discern Spock’s thoughts and emotions so easily. He had lived with the firm belief of being completely protected by his external neutral front. Had he started to involuntarily lose control? Had he-

“Watch the road,” Kirk said, nodding sideways to the front glass of the hovercar. Spock did, wondering when his focus had slipped, causing him to break several street regulations, and why he had not noticed. “Your secret’s safe, by the way. People don’t notice. They see your face and just think you’re untouchable and perfectly balanced. The only change they register is when you do that eyebrow raise thing and it usually scares them shitless. Metaphor! It’s a metaphor, don’t make that face! I mean, you’re not doing any face. There are just these tiny wrinkles at the edge of your eyes, they’re very expressive. And when something you hear is vulgar or unpleasant, your upper eyelids drop a bit, your nostrils dilate, like, half a millimetre, your lips tighten this infinitesimal fraction, and a small small small line appears between your eyebrows. But nobody notices, trust me. I notice, because I like looking at you.”

Kirk raised his feet on the headboard, unbothered by his revelation, unconscious-or maybe not-that Spock’s heart had accelerated inexplicably. _I notice, because I like looking at you_. This was… this was not under his area of control and Spock would do well to change the subject of their conversation.

“Remove your feet from the headboard,” he said.

“My car, remember?” Kirk asked.

“It is dangerous in case of accident.”

Spock had expected to be ignored, or, more likely, he had expected Kirk to argue with him. Instead, he removed his feet and went back to sitting properly. “So, what’s gotten you upset?”

“I am not sure my suggestion to accompany you to the school is appropriate.”

“Oh,” Kirk said, his tone mildly surprised. “Why? I mean, if it had been inappropriate I would have told you. Like, if I had thought that Jazz wouldn’t want to see you there with me, I would have told you. I didn’t feel obligated to accept because you’re my superior and current boss. She comes first, so I would have just said no, or suggested alternatives.

“She’ll be thrilled, you’ll see. She can’t stop talking about you. She said you refused your place at the VSA? They didn’t make the record public but she wanted to see it so I hacke- I found it. Accidentally. I found it accidentally.”

“I am sure,” Spock replied, not fooled by Kirk’s innocent tone, doubtlessly accompanied by an earnest gaze from his deeply blue orbs, the one that bewitched every individual Kirk used it on. Spock was immune to it, of course. He knew perfectly well that Kirk used it knowingly. He did not take his eyes off the road, though. For regulation reasons only, of course. 

So, Kirk had hacked the Vulcan’s VSA private nets. It was more worrisome than impressive. The universe was lucky that James T. Kirk had been born with a mostly correct moral compass.

“And gosh, your answer was epic! She went wild for it. I think I heard her saying it in the shower, pretending to be you. She might ask you to adopt her, mind you. I’m kidding!” Kirk added, laughing deeply, “I’m kidding, don’t worry. But just to be safe, don’t sign anything she hands to you without reading it first.”

“You do habitually read documents before signing them, of course?”

“Mh? Oh yeah, totally. Every single one. I’m a thoroughly responsible adult. I am! You don’t believe me, wow. Low move, Sir. This wedge between us is hurting my poor little heart. Oh, turn right here, the parking space is better.”

The girl’s gaze when she saw them standing together put Spock immediately at ease. She hastened her pace and surpassed her peers, coming to stand before them with glowing, excited eyes.

“Hello,” she said. 

“Hey there, pumpkin! Wanna give me your backpack?”

“I am able to carry it, thank you, dad.” She turned to Spock, her lips slightly curved into a smile she was fighting to suppress. “Commander Spock, do I understand correctly that you accepted my request?”

“You do,” Spock said, warmth filling his chest when her lips curved wider. “ _I am honoured by your choice_ ,” he added, nodding slightly.

“ _I am honoured by yours_ ,” she replied flawlessly, nodding back. 

Spock, surrounded by the waves of joy and comfort emanating from father and daughter, allowed his lips to curve slightly too.

Jasmine’s meditation techniques had been dramatically lacking in discipline and rigour. Spock had not expected it, since the girl showed significant emotional control, far more than he himself had managed at her age with his long hours of guided meditation. The blame was on her school. The Vulcan instructors had taught her notions for five years and never once took care of her mental well being. 

When he had communicated his findings to Jim, he had been distraught; his guilt had overwhelmed Spock’s shields, nearly blinding him. He had been quick to clarify. Jasmine’s mental construct and shields were deeply lacking, yes, though she was still an incredibly healthy and stable child. That was uniquely due to her father’s love and attention, his patience and the admirable upbringing he was conducting. 

When Spock had finished speaking, Jim’s eyes had filled with tears, and on an uncontrolled whim, the Cadet had hugged him. Jim had moved back swiftly after five seconds where Spock had been too bewildered to respond and had profusely apologised. Spock had reassured it that no apology was necessary, he understood the human habit of using physical touch as a comfort measure. 

If he focused, even now when nine days and twenty-two hours had passed, Spock could still feel the heat of Jim’s body against his skin. The way his relief and gratefulness had surrounded Spock’s mind like a warm balm.

Spock had been resolute to help Jasmine himself. He did not wish for her teachers to be given the opportunity to inflict additional damage, the girl trusted him, and he found he did not want to see another Vulcanshu enter the sanctity of the Kirk house with the possibility that they might misunderstand. That they might not see what miraculous treasure had been created between these walls, where love and respect entwined into the healthiest parenting relationship Spock had ever witnessed.

Additionally, he had written to his father regarding the school’s conduct. Two teachers had been substituted two days after his father read his message. Kirk had left a remarkably good bowl of Spock’s favourite Plomeek soup on his desk, with a thank you note signed by both him and his daughter. 

Kirk had been hesitant over accepting Spock’s help, insisting he should repay him for his time, but Spock had been unmovable. Kirk had accepted after a long discussion, promising Spock to take up more work as a Student Teacher to earn him back some of the time he would spend teaching Jasmine meditation. Spock had agreed, though he had no intention of assigning him any more work. 

Therefore, their habits changed. 

Everyday, Spock would wait for the Cadet to be done with his lectures and training sessions, then drive with him to the school and to his apartment. Alternatively, the afternoons were dedicated to guided meditation, mind discipline exercises, or relaxing patterns. As Spock taught Jasmine in her room, Kirk worked or studied in the kitchen. When they were done with the lessons, Jasmine moved to the living room for spare time activities and Spock moved to the kitchen to discuss with Jim lectures, tests or exercises for the freshman class, or to simply work beside him as he studied or cooked.

The change in names had been difficult for him at first, though Jim had insisted. “You’re in my house, you teach my kid for free, you might as well call me Jim.” He had offered his first name too, and Jim had taken it up easily.

The new rhythm of Spock’s life was more frantic. He had lost a few hours of the day he usually dedicated to meditation, though he found, after fifteen days, that he did not need them. Guiding Jasmine was disciplining and relaxing enough, and speaking with Jim regarding the Academy issues that bothered him was just as effective as meditating over them.

With the passing of days, their apartment was becoming more familiar to him than his own.

“Spock, you’re staying for dinner, right?” Spock had extended his stay well beyond dinner for eleven days. Jim asked him the same question every evening at variable times, always smiling. That day, he anticipated it, appearing at the door to Jasmine’s room.

“If I am not intruding,” Spock said, offering the same answer he did everyday.

“You are interrupting us, father!”

“Hey! What did I say about Game of Thrones?”

“That it is only a fantasy book and I must not repeat their actions or words in real life unless we are reenacting or it is a very very cool catchphrase.”

“So, what do you say?”

“You are interrupting us, dad.”

“Good. Sorry for interrupting, guys, it’s because I want to make Plomeek soup and I’m about to start now, so I need to know if I am cooking for two or three. Well, three it is, you can go back to work!”

Jim’s cooking skills had surprised Spock more than anything else. He was very proficient and he cooked mainly Vulcan dishes, for his daughter’s sake. He had admitted to Spock that he had a personal taste for American Terran food, such as hamburgers or steak, but he only indulged in them when eating out without her, not to upset her. Spock had surprised him with an hamburger for their meeting at lunch-break once, to thank him for the evening meals he kept consuming at his house, and Jim had looked at him with such awe and excitement that Spock had found himself hoping it would trigger another involuntary hug. It had not. Jim had been very careful to be respectful of Spock’s personal space after that one accident. It did not… Spock had nearly convinced himself that he was not disappointed for such logical behaviour.

The truth was, this changed life, even if brief and new, was affecting him. Spock had caught himself staring for long seconds at small details of Jim’s physique. The way his eyes gleamed when he saw Spock, the illogical way in which he carefully styled his hair, the small ridges and dishevelment to his uniform, the way he bit his lower lip when he was deep in thought. The way he smiled as openly and freely to his daughter as he did to Spock. The way his long, elegant fingers gripped the stylus. The curve and shapes of his body as he leaned over a desk to observe something Spock was explaining on his PADD. The small, almost invisible freckles on his nose and cheekbones. 

Spock had been used to awaiting the weekend to spend time alone, in peace. He now dreaded it, because it meant spending two days away from the sun filled apartment where Jim’s laugher made Jasmine’s eyes sparkle. It meant spending two days with his mind swirling over ideas and fantasies, the memory of Jim’s body against his, the brush of his emotions when they stood close, his clean and fresh scent, his sunny character. The way he focused all of his attention on Spock and immediately understood him. The surprising way by which his mind dynamically took a problem and broke it down, rebuilding it into a magnificent solution.

“Spock? You okay?” Jim’s words transported him back to reality. They had finished the Plomeek soup very quickly. It had been just as remarkable as Spock remembered. Jasmine had been telling them about her progress at school as she cleared the table. He had missed the majority of her words, though, and she was not present inside the kitchen anymore. “She went to finish her Physics homework,” Jim offered, observing him with keen eyes. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” Spock said, “I am well.”

“You know that doesn’t work on me, right? What’s wrong?” _I might have developed feelings for you_.

“Is Game of Thrones an appropriate book series for a girl of Jasmine’s age?”

“I took out the adult parts myself,” Kirk shrugged, “it’s a good book. She likes the Lannisters a little too much for my liking, I honestly believed she’d be team Stark, but her favourite character is still Daenerys so I guess it’s fine. Maybe it’s just because of the dragons, though. Huh.” He stood and went to the sink, passing a cloth over the droplets of water covering the marble and metal. “Don’t think I didn’t notice that you changed the subject, by the way.”

“I had no doubts you would not miss it,” Spock said. “You are remarkably brilliant.”

Jim suddenly stopped moving, staring at him with serious eyes. In the yellow artificial lights of the room, dressed in a simple blue shirt and soft cotton trousers that outlined his muscles, his feet bare on the warm wooden floor, he was magnificent. He looked warm, soft, vulnerable and real, and the yearning in Spock’s heart was almost too hard to ignore. 

“You know,” Jim spoke, his voice soft and slightly husked, “if you don’t stop flirting with me and then staring at me like you want to eat me, I might very well start to respond.” He licked his lips slowly, capturing Spock’s eyes with the softness of his tongue, the possibilities it entailed. “And trust me when I say this, both our careers would go to hell.” 

Spock’s body moved before he could take the conscious decision to, stepping off the chair and taking one step forward. He reigned himself in before the situation could escalate further, suppressing the instincts in his body that screamed at him to fill the distance and claim the small, soft, perfect man before him. And then Jim took a step forward too.

Spock’s mind, enveloped by the ancient rules that had guided his species to being the deadliest predators of the Vulcan deserts, shouted challenge. 

Before he could think, he reached Jim with two quick steps, ignoring his small yelp and pushing him bodily against the sink. Spock’s hands flew on the counter, his arms caging Jim in the small space between Spock’s chest and the cold marble. He leaned his face down, looking over Jim’s expression, his blood boiling at the eagerness and challenge he found in his eyes, his blue blue eyes, and didn’t stop until their lips were millimetres from brushing against each other, growling.

Jim was breathing hard underneath him, his body shaking slightly, his eyes flying over Spock’s face, excited, strong, intense. Their chests kept brushing, touching, grazing against each other in a warm dance that sent shiver up and down Spock’s spine. 

He could smell Jim’s scent, the earthiness of his sweat, the sweetness of his arousal. He wanted to imprint it in his mind, in his nose, and scent nothing else for the rest of his life. He wanted Jim to smell like him.

Jim’s hands moved up slowly and came to rest behind Spock’s neck, warm, slightly calloused, sending Jim’s surface emotions straight to Spock’s brain. Excitement, happiness, comfort. Affection. They pressed down and Jim moved up and forward, his lips pressing against Spock’s, soft, hot, perfect, and-

“Dad! I finished the second book and I can’t reach the third, it’s on the top shelf!”

They sprang apart like identical magnets forced together, both breaking quicker than normal, staring at each other with wide eyes. What had Spock just done? And why had Jim not pushed him away?

“I’m coming,” Jim called out, his voice slightly choked.

“Perhaps it is best that I leave,” Spock said, unable to look away from Jim, the warm imprint of his body still alive on his skin. His whole body was crawling with the need to cage him against himself again, to take him and embrace him and never let go.

Jim watched him, immobile and shaking, as he collected his things. Spock forced the fire down, shot him one last look, and exited the door.

“Where did Spock go?” Jasmine’s voice asked, faint but clear beyond the closed door. Spock paused on the first step of the stairs.

“Out.” Jim’s voice was still compromised.

“Why does it smell funny in here?”

“No reason.”

Spock ran all the way down.

  
The next morning, Spock sat in his office with a definite decision on the matter. He had meditated all night and he had obtained a logical solution. He would apologise to Cadet Kirk for his inappropriate behaviour. He would attend the regular sessions with his daughter. However, he would leave when they were done. He would drop the familiarities with the Cadet, such as personal names or casual brushes. He would-

“You marked me.” Jim’s voice, accusing and harsh, resonated through his office and blocked his line of thoughts. 

He looked… disastrous. His uniform was closed the wrong way, his hair was up in irregular spikes, his eyes were open and reddened and circled by the blue marks of lack of sleep. He was shaking, just like last night. Spock had never felt the need to embrace him so intensely. He wished to erase the distance between them and take him in his arms, kiss him and caress him to sleep, care for him like nobody else had ever done and- No, he must be strong. He had reached the most logical decision. A relationship between them would put both of their careers, but especially Cadet Kirk’s, in serious jeopardy. “The door was locked.”

“I got a fairy to open it,” Jim snapped. “You. Marked. Me.”

“I have no idea to what you are referring,” Spock said, and meant it.

“No?” Jim asked, walking slowly and deliberately around Spock’s desk, his eyes wild. “Let me explain, then. After one hour in the shower where I unsuccessfully tried to take care of a southern problem without ANY relief, I went to bed. I spent the most irritating and sexually frustrating night of my life. I couldn’t stop thinking about you, couldn’t calm down, couldn’t stop shaking.

“Then this morning, when I brought Jazz to school, the teacher called me in. The moment we got inside and were close enough to speak, she started sneezing. The asshole dad who always hits on me as he drops off his equally asshole son? He strutted up to me like a jackass like he usually does, and tried to-” Spock growled by instinct just at the idea that another man could- “Growl at me again while I’m talking and you won’t like what happens,” Jim snapped. “Apologise for growling.”

“I apologise,” Spock said immediately, drawn in by the sheer force of Jim’s command. One day, he would make a formidable Captain. He was-

Jim snapped his fingers in Spock’s face. “Focus. As I was saying, he tried to talk, but he sneezed too. Then he growled - I swear to God, Spock, do it again and I’m slapping you - and _then_ he _sniffed me_ , looked at me literally scared shitless and said ‘Please, tell your mate it was a misunderstanding. I apologise for overstepping.’” Kirk stopped five centimetres from Spock’s chair, staring down at him with hard eyes. “So, do you have anything to say?”

Spock swallowed in an attempt to loosen the tightening of his throat. “I am afraid I still do not know-“

“God, Spock, do you have any idea how hot this is?” Jim exclaimed, interrupting his apology. Hot? As in, positively arousing? “First, you flirt with me for weeks. _Weeks_ , Spock. Saying your damn thoughtful perfect things like I’m a good dad and I’m brilliant and you are honoured to be next to me. Then, you start looking at me that way, the you’re-incredible way and I’m-in-awe way. Yes, exactly that way, and it makes me fucking weak in the knees like a teenager. Then, you switch to the cavemen I-want-to-fuck-you-against-the-wall look.” Jim reached out and grabbed the back of Spock’s chair, turning Spock to face him. “And then yesterday? With the growling, the posturing, the throwing me against furniture and caging me in? And _then_ , I find out that you’d actually been emitting claiming pheromones? Do you have the slightest idea how hot it is, Spock?”

Spock, still unsure whether he was being reprimanded or complimented, met Jim’s eyes when the silence carried on and said, uncertain: “I… do not.”

Jim stared at him with hard, intense eyes for three point seven seconds. “God, you have no idea-“ he pushed the chair back with a hard shove “-how much-“ he stepped forward and forward again, grabbing the armrests and jumping up, straddling Spock’s lap, his face so close that Spock could count his freckles, his thighs clenching around him “-you drive me crazy.”

Jim kissed him, harsh and aggressive, pressing his lips and using his hands to tilt Spock’s head exactly as he wanted. As hard as the kiss had started, it turned soft and coaxing as Spock struggled to reform rational thoughts in his mind, lying immobile under Jim.

“Spock?” Jim asked, unsure. His small voice triggered Spock’s mind, the sudden need to comfort his scared mate overwhelming, and Spock sat up, forcing their chests together, his arms circling Jim’s form and holding him steady as he bent him backwards just so. 

Spock kissed him, unhurried, thorough, slow. Jim melted in his arms, all of his aggressiveness disappearing, and followed Spock’s lead with enthusiasm, making the sweetest noises, breaking apart to regain his breath with the most delicious gasps.

“I have a class in thirteen minutes,” Spock said between kisses.

“I cancelled it,” Jim panted, exposing his neck to Spock’s teeth and lips. His hand travelled behind his back, over Spock’s arm, until he met Spock’s fingers. “Can we?”

Spock was not surprised that Jim knew about Vulcan kisses. He shifted Jim to hold him with one arm and gave his other hand to him. Jim entwined their fingers, stroking slightly, making them both gasp.

“You feel this?” Spock asked, marvelled.

Jim nodded languidly. “Mh-hmm,” he murmured, “it feels electrical.”

“You are a constant source of wonder, James Kirk.”

“You’re not so bad yourself.”


	2. Chapter 2

The first day Jim had been alone with Jasmine had been the scariest of his life. One minute, T’Sharon had said she was going to the pharmacy to get her medicines, the next, Jim had been hit with the revelation that she wasn’t coming back. That she hadn’t come to Terra to introduce Jasmine to her dad. She had come to see if she could safely leave her with him and go away, go and die alone, not forcing her daughter to go through that, not risking the chance that Jasmine might be taken in by the parents she had hated so much.

Jim, after five years with Jazz, didn’t know if he’d ever had the guts to do something so brave. He’d tried contacting her. Her illness had been terminal, but the universe was big, who knew? Maybe she was still alive somewhere out there, living in the freedom her family had denied her all her life. 

Her parents hadn’t contacted him. They belonged to the extremists family who believed in race purity and they probably thought that Jasmine had died with her mother.

Jim was glad.

Being a dad alone wasn’t easy, yes, but he’d loved every minute of it and couldn’t imagine his life without her. He had a shelf in his room filled with memory chips with Jazz’s life: her first test, her first bicycle ride, her first brainfreeze from eating too much ice-cream. And now? Now Jim might not have to be alone anymore. He hadn’t been for three months.

He cuddled back against Spock’s chest, smiling contently when his arms pulled him in tighter.

“Hi,” he said.

“Salutations,” Spock answered, his breath teasing Jim’s ear. Jim shivered and chuckled, bringing one of his hands up to caress Spock’s arm gently. “Did you sleep well?”

“Very,” Jim said, closing his eyes again, basking in the warmth and comfort of Spock’s embrace. “You?”

“Yes.”

“You know,” Jim said, “when I was alone, I hated school trips. The house got so empty without her that I couldn’t sleep. But now, I can totally see the appeal of a free house. I mean, I was still kept awake until very, very late, but I kind of liked the activity.”

Spock hummed. “I am glad I was able to offer acceptable levels of entertainment.”

“Oh, I definitely heard how _glad_ you were, Sir. Felt it, too. Still feel it, actually.”

“You should file a complaint, Cadet.”

“Mh-hm, maybe I will. Or won’t, if you get me breakfast in bed.”

Spock huffed slightly, and Jim just knew that there must be those small, exasperated-but-happy lines at the corner of his eyes. “I shall endeavour to do so, for the sake of my career.” His lips left a burning kiss on Jim’s shoulder, making him shiver in delight. “What do you wish to eat?”

“There’s protein pudding and fruit salad in the fridge. And syrup! Bring the syrup, please.”

“Very well.”

“Don’t pretend to forget it again.”

Spock sighed. “I shall not.”

“Thank you!”

Spock left the bed and brought most of the warmth with him, so Jim cuddled back further into the gentle curve his body had left on the mattress, reaching for his COMM on his nightstand. It read Saturday, 0817, no new messages.

Jasmine had been gone since Wednesday. She hadn’t initially wanted to go, and Jim had understood. Spock had somehow managed to substitute the two worst teachers of her school, and the new ones seemed pretty normal, but the kids were still the same. He’d told her that he would take two days off and take her to whatever museums she wanted. 

Then, the school had changed the itinerary, and the trip to Vulcan had turned into a trip to a Vulcan Exploratory Spaceship, and nothing in the world would have stopped Jazz from boarding it. Jim had been worried, but she had COMM-ed him every night and seemed mostly fine. Spock had participated by being a great distraction, but Jim secretly thought he was worried too. He could read it in the hesitancy with which he asked about Jazz and her messages. It was so sweet.

Jim had decided that they wouldn’t tell her about, well… whatever it was they were doing. It was intense, and very good for them both, but it was also very new and kind of illegal. Jasmine more or less idolised Spock and Jim didn’t want her to be disappointed if things went crushing down and ended badly. He needed to be sure. Spock, of course, had understood. Because he was perfect like that. So, Spock came to their apartment during the week to meditate with her, he stayed for dinner, and then he went home. If Jim happened to go down to throw out the trash as he was walking out - so they could make out - Jazz was not bothered nor suspicious.

Intimacy wasn’t easy to achieve, though. Spock’s apartment was very close to campus, but they couldn’t be seen going there together too often not to arise suspicion. These three nights had been the first time they’d slept together in the literal sense. Jim had been kind of worried, mostly about the possibility that Spock wouldn’t like him if he got to spend more time alone with him, and his mind had turned it into some sort of trial period.

It had been… well. Jim had pains and marks and love bites to say how incredible it had been. And last night, they had melded for the first time as they made love. They’d been talking about it for a long time, never finding the right moment. Jim’s memories about it were still confused. He’d been pulled into a dimension he had never had to compute before and he hadn’t really understood it all. The feelings, though. He’d never experienced anything so intensely. He’d been himself and Spock and neither and both at the same time, feelings and sensations travelling across his skin in waves, no matter what was real, no matter what was not, creating an explosion of sensations.

Jazz was due to return that evening. His initial plans had been going alone. Spock didn’t usually hang out with them on the weekend, even if Jasmine often insisted Jim invite him, but maybe… maybe they could go together. Just to see what she’d say. She would probably be too excited to notice anything, anyway. Since Jim had started the Academy, Jazz had been counting down the days to his graduation and his assignment on a Starship, because both he and Chris had promised that they’d make sure she could come with him. This trip to a VSA exploratory vessel was probably going to be all she’d talk about for months, with her eyes shining and her face muscles fighting to contain her smiles.

Jim couldn’t wait.

Last night, hours after their goodnight COMM, Jazz had called again. It had been so short that Jim hadn’t had the time to pick it up. When he’d COMM-ed back, she hadn’t answered. He’d called her teachers, one of the new ones, to ask if anything had happened, but she had promised that all was well. The whole thing hadn’t sat right with Jim, his instincts telling him that something was wrong.

Spock had suggested calling again, or calling a crew-member he knew from his youth on Vulcan, or even calling the Embassy or the VSA itself. Jim had been tempted, but when Spock had placed his COMM in Jim’s hand he’d felt silly and he’d given it back. It was just normal parent worry. Jazz would have kept calling him if anything was wrong.

He put the COMM back on the bedside table and buried himself back in the covers, trying to cap his anxiousness. 

Five seconds later, a ping. Jim sat up immediately and picked up the COMM again, but found it still empty.

“Spock,” he called, “it was yours!”

“Who sent the message?” Spock asked, without coming back from the kitchen.

“You want me to check it?”

“I assumed you could read.”

“Ah-ha, very funny. I meant, for privacy and stuff.”

“Jim, I only use my COMM device for work and you are the closest thing I have to an assistant.”

“Oh my God, I am totally your sexy secretary right now,” Jim said, smiling widely at Spock’s sigh and rolling in the bed to reach the other bedside table, where Spock’s comm was placed. “We’re also having a super secret affair and did it all over your office. This is prime romance novel stuff, Spock! I could write it. I’d change our names, of course.” Jim grabbed it and opened it. “You’re be Spack and I’d be Ti, we’d live in London and-“ oh. “It’s-It’s registered as Ambassador Sarek.”

Spock’s steps resonated through the empty corridor and he appeared at the door, impeccable in his satin pyjamas. Jim felt slightly silly, naked and with a bedhead and still between the blankets, so he handed the COMM over and moved to exit the bed.

“Breakfast will be ready momentarily,” Spock said, but Jim waved him away.

“I’ll finish up so you can listen alone.” He smiled reassuringly and quickly wore the first thing he could find, hurrying out.

He didn’t know what the exact deal was with Spock and his dad, but it wasn’t good. He spoke of his mother sometimes, and he seemed to care for her, but ver rarely about his father, and always mentioned him by name.

Spock had already set the pudding and the fruit salad in various bowls and set the water for the tea and coffee on the stove. Jim took out his coffee beans and Spock’s favourite tea lives, then went to retrieve two cups. He was careful to make as much noise as possible so he wouldn’t overhear the message by accident. 

When Spock reappeared, Jim met him with a smile.

“Everything okay?” It fell quickly. Spock looked as serious as he had the first time Jim had barged out of his class. He had also changed to his uniform. Standing in front of him with sweater trousers and a discoloured cotton T-shirt, Jim felt incredibly out of place. “Spock?”

“I must leave,” Spock said, looking at him with a slight light of regret, “I am sorry.”

“Oh,” Jim said, surprised, careful to bring his smile up again and not show any sadness. “No problem. You want something to eat on the go?”

“That will not be necessary.”

“Okay,” he said, eyeing Spock warily. “Don’t worry, I can see it’s urgent, Spock.”

“I am truly sorry, Jim.”

It almost looked like… it almost looked like Spock was waiting for him to ask him to stay? But he had already gotten dressed and he had his bag of clothes in his hand, ready and full. “It’s okay, really,” Jim said. “I’ll COMM you tonight?” he asked tentatively.

“Perhaps it is best if I contact you. I do not wish to… I do not believe that it would be constructive for my parents to know of you.”

“Oh,” Jim said again, confused over whether he should feel offended. This was Spock, right? Spock was _nice_. There must be a nice meaning somewhere in there. He had just misinterpreted. “Okay, then. Have a… good day?”

“I wish you a good day as well,” Spock said, his sudden propriety and politeness starting to grate at Jim’s nerves.

They stared at each other for a few more seconds, Jim waiting for him to step forward and say goodbye as he usually did, with a kiss, and Spock… Spock, looking more and more resolute every passing second and eventually walking away, out of the kitchen and into the living room, his shoes loud against the floor, resonating in the silence.

Jim, realising Spock was really leaving like this, turned back around to the table, refusing to show how much it was hurting him to watch him go this way.

He yelped when two arms suddenly grabbed him, his instincts overtaking him and throwing an elbow harshly back up, towards the face. Spock blocked him easily - how the hell - and used the momentum to turn him around and entwine their fingers, his mouth descending on Jim’s and kissing him deeply, thoroughly, making him squirm.

“How the hell did you get back here so silently,” Jim muttered, and Spock ignored him, recapturing his lips. He tasted of mint and spices, exactly like his toothpaste, and Jim must taste absolutely disgusting but he didn’t seem to mind.

“Jim,” he said, his voice urgent, “you are aware that I care for you deeply, are you not?”

Jim sighed, feeling his reservations and anger melt, pushing them down and out, then nodded, meeting Spock’s eyes with a small smile.

“This,” Spock said, “is an… enormously annoying and displeasing inconvenience. I might not contact you for some time. Though, you will remember, will you not? That I care for you, no matter what?”

“Of course, Spock. I care about you too.”

“I am truly sorry, Jim. I had hoped to ask you the honour of accompanying you to meet Jasmine.”

Jim snorted, shaking his head, amused. “That’s funny, because this morning I woke up thinking I wanted to ask you the same thing over breakfast.”

“I truly wish I could,” Spock said.

“It’s okay, really,” Jim said. “Let’s not end this nice weekend on a bad note, mh? Go, don’t worry about me. There will be new school trips for us to go to pick-up together.”

“I will think of you, Jim.”

“And I you, Spock,” Jim smiled. “Go, don’t worry. We’ll talk when you can.”

Jim spent the morning cleaning out the traces of their days together. He was done way too early, so he decided to bake Jazz a cake. It wasn’t usual for them, only for special occasions, but Jim was feeling too lonely for watching TV or reading, too sad to COMM Bones and go out, too nervous to do his essays and papers. So, he replicated the ingredients and started baking. Mixing Human and Vulcan sweets was complicated, and disastrous results had happened often, but Jim had eventually nailed it, like he did most things. 

He was done at 1509 with still four more hours to go.

He decided to make the overcomplicated Plomeek soup recipe he’d hacked from a Vulcan culinary textbook. 

After ten minutes, he started feeling funny. He was getting more and more nervous, and chopping vegetables didn’t seem to help grounding him like it usually did. His hands were shaking, but he’d had one single cup of coffee and no other excitants had been in his lunch and breakfast, so it made no sense.

When he set the vegetables on the stove to make the broth, the shaking had gotten so bad he had nearly dropped the pot. 

Maybe he should just run it off. He hadn’t gone running in the open for a while, that usually helped him with the stress. He changed, feeling more anxious by the minute, and walked down the stairs to the hall pushing down the increasing nausea. 

He managed to run fifty metres before the panic overtook him and blurred his vision, forcing him to brace his shoulder against the wall, his hands covering his face.

Maybe he’d eaten something past its date? Everything had smelled fine, though. Spock would have told him if anything had been remotely close to toxic or rotten because he had a crazy sense of smell and a crazy sense of overprotectiveness. 

Spock. He should call Spock. Spock would know what to do. He took his COMM out of his plastic arm band and opened it, then paused. No, what the hell was he doing? Spock had asked him not to call. He shouldn’t. Maybe this was an allergic reaction? He hadn’t eaten anything new and his allergic reactions usually started with burning in his throat and hands and this hadn’t, but who knew, right?

Bones’s COMM number was the second on the list. After Spock. Spock who- no. Why the hell couldn’t he focus?

“Hey, are you all right, man?”

Jim nodded the stranger away, his vision too blurry to see his face, check for weapons, check for-

“Jim? What’s up? Jim?!”

“Bones,” Jim rasped, his head swirling wildly and his vision blackening, “I don’t feel so good.”

“Jim!? Where are you? Jim, stay awake goddammit, I asked you not to pull this shit on me again!! Jim? Are you listening?? Jim, I need you to tell me where you are! JIM!”

Jim woke up to the smell of Spock’s skin in his nose. He hummed, content, and turned to bury his nose into the source. “Spock?”

“No,” a rough voice answered, “sorry, Jimbo. How are you feeling?”

“Why is my mouth numb?” Jim asked, opening his eyes and squinting against the light. “Bones?”

“Yep. Cheers to you, Jimmy, you just had a spectacular shitshow of a panic attack. Never half measures with you, huh?”

“No hospital?” Jim asked, surprised. His head felt like it was filled with cotton. And hurt. Like a really bad hangover.

“Figured it could send you spiralling again, and since you have a kid to pick up later, here you are.”

“Did you drug me or something?”

“Or something,” Bones said, “sedative and tranquilliser. Your adrenaline was way out of control.”

“I have to drive later,” Jim muttered, sitting up slowly. His head pounded as if his brain had just been thrown against his skull by the motion, and he winced.

“Spock ain’t coming?” Jim shook his head no, then regretted it immediately. “I’ll drive you, I guess. I was sleeping off a 14 hours night shift, but who cares, right?”

“Sorry,” Jim murmured.

“It’s fine, I’m up. Say, how many fingers am I holding up?”

“Three,” Jim said, and then continued to answer all of Bones’s questions and lay motionless as he scanned and visited him.

“You’re fine, I guess. Your fight-or-flight hormones are off the table, though. You really don’t know what triggered it?”

“Spock had just left, but… he left on good terms? I was baking when it started.”

“I can smell. It’s for Jazz?” Jim nodded slowly. “She’ll be thrilled, Jim.”

“I can kinda still feel it,” Jim admitted.

“What?”

“The anxiety, the panic? It’s like it’s pulling at the back of my head.”

“Seriously? ‘cause I gave you a shit ton of sedatives, kid.”

“I don’t know, it’s just… there. Pulling. It started this way, earlier, then my hands started shaking.”

“Why don’t you sleep it off? We don’t have to go for another hour. I’ll wake you.”

Jim didn’t manage to sleep. The pull at the back of his head increased minute by minute, making him restless. When he tried to enter the car to leave, his hands were shaking again.

“I don’t like this, Jim. Are you sure you haven’t been injected with anything? We should really run blood tests.”

“It’ll go away once I see Jazz,” Jim said. He’d been anxious about her, right? He just needed to see her. He was still shaken from that crazy day four months before, when she had run. He’d be fine. He just needed to see his kid. 

“If it doesn’t, I’m driving you to the hospital, all right?”

“Yeah, fine. It’ll go away with her, Bones, don’t worry. I know it.”

When Bones pulled up in the parking lot, Jim’s legs had started shaking too, but he managed to stand up and close the door behind himself.

“Your face is green,” Bones told him, in that menacing tone he used when a sneaky hypospray was coming. 

“I’m fine, Bones, I just want my kid.”

“I’m driving you to the hospital the moment we get her, Jim. If you fight me I’ll punch the lights out of you. Jesus, man, you can barely walk! Take my arm and don’t be an idiot. What if she sees you like this, huh?” That made Jim comply quickly.

The kids were waiting outside the school, the hoverbus that had taken them away parked silently on their left. Jim was seeing double, so he honestly couldn’t bee too sure.

“I can’t see,” he said, panicked.

“Yep, can’t see her either,” Bones replied.

“No, Bones, I can’t see.”

“What?! Why didn’t you tell me-“

“Mr. Kirk, a word, please?” Vulcanshus all dressed so similar. Normally he could distinguish them decently, but with his eyes seeing three different unfocused forms, the woman might have been the cleaning lady for all he knew.

“Can’t you see he’s sick, woman?”

“Where’s Jasmine?” Jim asked, shaking his head to make the spinning go away. 

“That is what we should talk about, Mr. Kirk. She is not here.”

Panic hit him so hard that Jim fell to the floor, the world swirling around him, his head hurting so much he thought he was about to explode. She is not here. He could barely hear Bones’s protests over the woman’s next words. 

“She attacked an officer and was deemed exceedingly undisciplined. A mind healer analysed her and thought it best to relocate her permanently to Vulcan, with her Vulcanshu relatives,” this wasn’t happening “where she might receive the proper care a Vulcanshu child necessitates.” This wasn’t happening. “The Embassy’s Social Services will send you the legal documentation momentarily.”

This wasn’t happening, this wasn’t happening, this wasn’t happening. Jasmine. Her blue eyes. This wasn’t happening. Marks on her cheek where tears had fallen. This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t-

“Spock,” Jim rasped, “I need Spock.”

This wasn’t happening. Jasmine had COMM-ed him the night before. She’d sounded so good. _I miss you, dad_. She’d COMM-ed him. She’d- this wasn’t possible. He’d promised her. He’d promised her she could call him when she needed him and Jim hadn’t picked up. This wasn’t possible. Jasmine was going to get off the bus. She’d be there any minute. She was. She was there. She was- Spock was coming with him to get her. She was going to be so happy. They could go to dinner together. She could choose where. She would get off now, any minute. She- Spock-

“Spock,” Jim called.

“I know Jim, you’ve been saying it for five minutes! Focus, damn it, don’t pass out again! And you, I asked you to call an ambulance! I swear to god, if you don’t, I’ll sue you till your ass is in the shittiest jail in this god-forsaken universe!”

“Spock,” Jim begged.

“I’ve called him seven times, Jim, he’s not picking up! Yes, Captain Pike, this is Dr. Leonard McCoy, I need your help right now-“

  
Spock’s head had started hurting since morning. His parents had not noticed, therefore he had said nothing. Now, though, it had increased significantly enough to cause him difficulty in focusing on his mother’s words.

She noticed immediately.

“Spock,” she said, “are you all right, dear?”

“A negligible headache, mother.”

“Not so negligible if you-“

The door to Spock’s apartment flew open, hitting the wall loudly. Turning around, Spock had the irrational expectation of meeting Jim’s eyes, this being another example of his intrusive hacking.

Instead, Captain Pike walked through, his eyes enraged like Spock had never seen.

“Spock,” he said, his voice icy, “why aren’t you answering your COMM?”

“I asked him not to,” his mother said, apparently unbothered by a stranger entering like this.“Who are you, pray say?”

“Captain Christopher Pike,” the Captain said, his tone short and rude, not glancing away from Spock. “Spock, I need you to come with me to the Vulcan Embassy _right now_ to-“

“The Vulcan Embassy? Why would you need to-“

“With all due respect, Miss, please shut up!” Captain Pike snapped. Spock opened his mouth to defend her and suggest the tones of the conversation were lowered, when the man went on. “Spock. Jasmine’s been taken away from Jim and sent to Vulcan.” 

The rush of his own blood filled Spock’s ears. “What?”

“They said she attacked an officer on the ship and a healer analysed her and deemed Jim not a good parent, so they took her away.”

Jasmine, young and even-tempered, hiding behind her father when he had walked her out of the Embassy, months before, flinching away from all Vulcanshus. This was… unconceivable. Spock had heard his COMM notifications and had believed them to be related to the continuous data he had requested from the astronomy research team. Jim… Jim he had asked not to contact him.

“Where is Jim?” Spock asked, interrupting his mother’s questions.

“Spock, he’s in the Intensive Care Unit. He’s- he’s bad. His body is shutting down and we don’t know why. He kept calling out for you and Jasmine and then suddenly he stopped breathing. The doctors said he shows signs of telepathic assault but we don’t understand who could’ve-”

“It was me.” Panic, pain, fear, guilt. He had suspected. That morning, Jim had revealed he had had Spock’s same thought, and Spock had suspected but he had dismissed it as a coincidence. 

His mother’s gasp, Pike’s hands on his shoulders. 

He had been feeling nauseous all day. He had been experiencing pain all day. All of it, had been just a fraction of what Jim must have felt. 

They had been too compatible. It should have put him on guard. Jim’s mind had adapted so easily to his, it had been so dynamically strong and vibrant and responsive. Spock had perceived Jim’s sadness more acutely than ever as he had turned his back to leave. So acutely that he had felt forced to come back. He had bonded Jim to himself. And then he had left.

And now, his daughter was missing and Jim was on the brink of death. The bubble, the sun-filled apartment, the love and joy and laugher and comfort.

He had destroyed it.

“Spock.” His father’s voice. Spock had believed himself so superior to him. He had believed himself better because he had been admitted into the sacred space of Jim Kirk’s life. And he had wrecked it, full with his arrogance. Torn it to pieces and left without looking back.

“Father,” Spock said, “I need you to come with me to the hospital.”

“Very well.”

“Spock? You have to explain what’s going on, because I need to get that kid back to Terra before those fucking bastards make her disappear! Why are you going to the hospital and why the hell is Jim’s condition your fault?!”

“I unknowingly bonded with him and left his side open. His body is reacting like it would with an external organ. It is rejecting it.”

“You- Okay. Okay. So you can save him? You cut it off and he goes back to normal?”

“I hope I can, Sir. I will accept the consequences of my actions.”

“This is… shit, Spock. What the hell did you do?” Captain Pike appeared not able to stand looking at him. He understood. He deserved it. “How do I get my hands on something legal to get the kid back?”

“I’ll help you,” Spock’s mother said. “I have access and diplomatic immunity. You can explain the details on the way. Spock, Sarek, since it looks like your thing is more urgent, take the hovercar. The Captain and I will call for taxi transport. Go, now.”

Spock followed his father out and dared not look back at Pike. I’m glad he has you, now, he had told him, seventeen days ago. 

He sat on the passenger seat without speaking. He did not believe himself capable of driving safely. His father did not speak either, starting the car and accelerating past the speed limit. The drive to Starfleet Medical was brief. 

Spock would terminate the bond, then relocate to the Embassy to help as much as he could. After ensuring that Jasmine was returned safely, he would leave. Even if Jim retained a single string of affection for him, if he were to survive, Spock would not endanger his happiness again. He had tried to live the life he had dreamed about for so long. He had failed, and ruined it for the people he loved.

“The meld,” his father asked when they dismounted, “it was a single occurrence?”

“Yes.”

At the door of the ICU, a Vulcanshu woman in white ceremonial clothes was waiting for them. Spock had not noticed his father calling a Mind Healer, he had believed he would perform the ritual himself. This was safer. His father, even in moments of crisis, remained perfectly logical. And Spock had failed yet again.

“She has my trust,” Sarek offered. Spock nodded his thanks.

He did not participate in the discussion with Doctor McCoy regarding their presence. He was too ashamed to raise his eyes and meet the gaze of a friend of Jim, of someone who cared for the man and knew what a horrible crime Spock had committed. He accepted the insults silently when the doctor threw it at him. He only wished to disappear.

His life had been short of meaningless before Jim. He had lived day by day in solitude and dry scientific research. He had kept people away on purpose. Jim had gifted him with companionship, friendship, acceptance. He had introduced him to his own friends, had made him feel welcome among them. Spock had hurt him to the brink of death.

He deserved the hate. He did not deserve to breathe in a world where James Kirk did not.

They were granted entrance. 

Jim was-

He could not watch.

“Look at him,” McCoy hissed, “don’t you dare look away from what you’ve done.”

“Cease speaking, doctor, or I will have you removed.”

“May I remind you, _Ambassador_ , that this is MY ward and you’re only here because I let you!”

“Doctor McCoy is right,” Spock said, and raised his gaze again.

Jim was pale. He was naked, vulnerable and small, so different from the happy, healthy man that had woken up in Spock’s arms. He looked grey and lifeless under the neons, his sun kissed skin forgotten. Uncountable tubes entered and exited his body. His mouth was open and his throat extended, a plastic tube forcing his lifeless lungs to expand.

He had done this. 

He had taken the man he loved and stole the life from him. He had taken his smile, his laugher. The small dimples in his cheeks. The way his eyes shone when he was happy. The warmth of his skin beneath the covers.

This was his burden and he would live with it forever.

He watched as the healer placed her fingers on Jim’s slack face.

“Doesn’t he have to be in the meld too?”

“First, the healer must understand what was done to his mind and how best to cure him. She needs silence to work, Doctor McCoy.”

“My mind to your mind,” she whispered, “my thoughts to your thoughts.”

She remained in the meld for forty-five seconds. When she removed her hand, it was shaking.

“There is a bond causing this,” she said, “though it is not the one with Spock.”

“Like hell it isn’t!” McCoy screamed, “I knew you sneaky fucks would do this, pretend this wasn’t the rich boy’s fault and let Jim die not to tarnish his reputation. Who else could have done this? Jim wouldn’t have let anyone-“

“His daughter,” the healer said. 

Spock’s headache was worsening. “Please explain.”

“There is indeed an incomplete bond between yourself and James Kirk, Spock, though it is causing him no discomfort. It is significantly stable. I do not believe it was created recently. I would place it at least one month back from now.”

“That is impossible,” Spock said, “I have never melded with him before.”

“Strong minds do not require melding to form bonds. His mind is very responsive for a human. It was a mutual creation, enforced through repetitive physical contact and intimacy. It is currently the only thing keeping him alive.”

“What?! This is nonsense! Jasmine had been with him for five years and this has never-“

“Happened, yes. The parental bond between Mr. Kirk and his daughter is recent too. Approximatively three months old. I do not believe she is aware of it, though I can sense her pain and fear. Her mind is instinctually grasping her father’s for safety, taking his energy away. She is not doing it on purpose. She is doing so to survive.”

“She formed it involuntarily after I taught her meditation,” Spock realised. “She had not known how to use her telepathy before.”

“I would hypothesise she has been sedated and is using her father’s energy to remain vigilant. Where is she? She must be told at once.”

“She COMM-ed yesterday evening and did not pick up after that.” Spock frowned. “Jim immediately sensed that something was wrong, so we contacted the teachers. They assured us all was well. He did not wish to investigate further and minimised his worries as normal for a human parent. Had I known,” Spock realised, “had I known of the bond, we would have sent an envoy to check. Jim felt fine until we separated. His mind had been anchoring on mine.”

He had seconded Jim’s worry, though he had not insisted further. Why had he not insisted? If he had- Spock was still at fault. He should have not minimised a call from a girl so responsible. He should have insisted. He should have insisted but he had not, and now Jim lay dying on a hospital bed and Jasmine was lost. He could have prevented this. This was-

His fault. All his fault. He did not- he could not-

“Whoa, whoa, whoa don’t you dare faint on me, man! Someone help?! He’s freaking heavy!! Spock, you’re off the fucking hook, man up and come up with a plan already!”

“His body is reacting to the vicinity of his wounded mate and the impossibility to offer comfort.”

“What are you saying, lady?! That they need to lie down and cuddle?? I’ll cut off all of your pretty eyebrows if any of you touches one single tube on Jim’s body, I swear to G- Spock! Sit down already, goddamit! Someone hand me that cup!”

Spock’s face was splashed with ice, and he opened his eyes to find himself lying on the floor, his vision blurred at the edges. 

“Spock,” the healer said, “as his bondmate, the choice is yours. His best chance is to break the parental bond with his daughter. It should be enough to save him.”

“NO!” Spock screamed, in unison with Doctor McCoy. “No! She needs it. Jim would never want it. He would rather risk his life,” he added. “Finish the matebond between us. It will give him the necessary strength to survive enough days for me to find her.”

“Spock,” his father intervened, “the physical and mental stress would be significant. You would not be able to bear it long.”

“I only need bear it until I find Jasmine,” Spock said. “I will use my bond with Jim to see hers and locate her. This is my fault. I will bear the burden. Finish it. That is my wish.”

  
Captain Pike had obtained the Enterprise for the rescue mission.

His mother had obtained the data of the shuttle that had taken Jasmine from the exploratory vessel her school had been visiting.

Sarek had obtained from T’Pau the complete block of all incoming and outgoing spaceships from Vulcan after that same shuttle had been registered on ground check-in. Jasmine was being searched for in the whole planet.

The bond with Jim had taken two hours. After that, a silent McCoy had helped Spock lie down next to him, for the seven hours of physical contact the healer had recommended.

Since the bonding, Jim’s heart and blood pressure had improved, though only slightly. His body was still cold against Spock’s skin and the respirator was still breathing for him.

Inside their heads, Spock had enveloped Jim’s psyche into his own, curling protectively around the small sphere of his weak conscience. Beneath it, protected by all of his layers, all of his existence, lay the bond with his daughter. Even unconscious on his deathbed, Jim was still placing her above all else. He still loved her with all his life.

He had started threading them together slowly. Spock would find Jasmine and Jim would not die. He would fight for them until his dying breath. He would entwine their minds together so wherever the search brought him, Spock would still find Jim. He would still be able to keep him on the surface and not lose him to the depths of annihilation.

It was likely that he would lose himself in this attempt. It did not matter. Their lives were more valuable than his. The sun filled apartment had been shining with happiness before him and it would shine again without him. If this destroyed him, he was glad his last thoughts would be to them. He was glad that a man so magnificent as James T. Kirk would hold the last remnants of his Katra.

“Hey,” Doctor McCoy was at the door. Spock opened his eyes, but his vision was blurry, his mind inserted too deeply into Jim’s to discern the physicality of reality. “Your father explained me your suicidal plan and what you’re doing to save him. I should stop you. As a doctor, I should stop you. But I won’t. He said that there’s a small chance you’ll both make it, and if you don’t, I’ll take the responsibility to the grave.”

“It is not your burden, doctor.”

“Well, from now on you’re my patient, so it is.” He hold up something luminescent and grey. “This is a big needle. I’ll put a sensor in your arm that will transmit your vitals at all times. The CMO has agreed to work together on you in case the strain gets too strong. I have a few good ideas but they’re for emergencies only.”

“Proceed.” He did. 

Just before exiting, the doctor spoke again.

“I’m not sorry I blamed you.”

“It was a righteous accusation.”

“Just so you know, Jim will kick both our asses for this plan. I doubt he’ll talk to me for months after he finds out I let you put yourself in this danger. He really cares about you. That’s why I’m so pissed. The moments before passing out, he kept calling out your name. It was heartbreaking. He has a kid, Spock. He’s never put so much of himself into a relationship, to protect her. And now he has you, and when he needed you, you weren’t there.

“And I know you feel like shit, I can see it, but I don’t care. You’ll have my forgiveness when Jim wakes up and is kid is alive and fine next to him.”

“I do not deserve forgiveness. When they are safe and reunited, I will leave. I will not risk damaging them again.”

“Fuck, you really don’t get it, do you?! You try to leave this room after you bring Jazz back and I’ll chain you to the goddam bed. Now go back to sleep, you green-blooded idiot.”

Captain Pike came to the hospital to accompany him to the Enterprise. 

Spock had not left Jim’s room to change into his uniform, but the lack of physical contact had manifested anyway. His head hurt and his vision was blurred at the edges. When the Captain entered, he looked down, ashamed memories surfacing from the Captain’s knowledge that Spock was to blame. Doctor McCoy had known Jim for three years and a half and he had not retained his rage. Captain Pike had known Jim since his birth. Spock would not be surprised if he was asked to spend the voyage in the brig.

“He was just like this when he was born, you know,” the Captain said instead. Spock raised his eyes, confused.

Captain Pike circled the bed and went to stand next to him. His hand came to rest on Spock’s shoulder and squeezed.

“He was. Winona was still grieving George, so she left him at the hospital and went back to Iowa. She didn’t want to see him die too, she said. I was his godfather, and even if I knew that he wouldn’t remember it, I didn’t want to leave him alone there, even if he only survived a few more days. They gave me Winona’s bed and a private room, but they kept coming and going, there was no privacy. 

“He was so small, Spock. They brought me glasses of water bigger than his body. He was linked to so many tubes and machines and he kept dehydrating to near-death levels. Every evening, a doctor would come in and tell me to get ready, because he might not make it through the night. And every morning, he was still there, red and with the most frowny face I’ve ever seen a kid make.” He paused, laughing and shaking his head. Spock kept his silence, afraid to interrupt a revelation so precious. “The nurses called him the little Klingon, because he just kept fighting. He was supposed to last three days, and on day ten he was still there, with his angry face and his curled toes, covered in tubes. On the eleventh, he had a respiratory insufficiency and they had to bring him back from death twice. I was distraught, because… well, we had all started to believe in him, you know? His day-nurse cried a little, seeing him covered in even more tubes, even more machines.

“That night I made a promise to him. I put my hands in the box and took his hand, it was smaller than my pinkie but it gripped so hard, it was ridiculous. I said, fight this time, Jim, and everything else will be easy. Fight this one alone and I’ll fight with you for the rest of my life, so you’ll never have to fight death again,” he choked on the last words, and stopped to take a breath. 

Spock hesitated, then placed his own hand on the Captain’s shoulder.

“You must think it was an illogical promise. I know it was. Promising that life would be easy. Promising that I’d always be there with him, as if I could solve everything life threw at him. As if I could stop him from getting hurt. But he was just so small, Spock. So small and alone.

“He did his part. He cheated death and kept breathing, his face always so angry and scrunched up, as if he was already mad at the world. He had every right to be. And I did everything to keep mine. I took him away from Riverside as much as I could. I brought him around the galaxy whenever I got the chance. Then, I placed him in that chess tournament and he met T’Sharon. She was incredible. You would have loved her. She had this way of handling him that went beyond my understanding. She was alone too, her family maybe worse than Jim’s. And when she disappeared, I saw him break down. All my efforts wasted. He started running from me too and I couldn’t find a way to help him.

“When she came back to Terra with a kid, I don’t know how she found him. I’d been looking for him for months and found nothing. But she did. Immediately. And she left Jasmine and disappeared again. The call he gave me that afternoon, Spock, I’ll never forget it. He needed my help again. He wanted my help again. So I just kept my word and said, bring her here. Bring her here and we’ll deal with this together. And he did. They lived with me for a few months. I watched Jim turn from the angry kid who hated the world into the most wonderful father I’ve ever seen. The frown was gone. He looked at her in a way he had never looked at anybody else. Until you.

“God, Spock the way Jim looks at you and the way you look at Jim. It’s like witnessing something magical. Sometimes I can’t believe that Jim, my Jim, got so lucky to have something like this. 

“I promised I’d fight for him, Spock. And I will, to my dying breath. I think you did too. I think that you love him, I think that you love him more than I do, and nothing in the world could stop you from leaving and going on with this plan. 

“But Jim isn’t that small, angry and lonely child anymore. Now, fighting for him means fighting for you too. Because if he wakes up and you’re gone, I don’t think I can be enough. I don’t think Jasmine and I can be enough. Do you understand, Spock? Do you understand what I’m saying? You can’t do this with the idea of fighting for him not to die. You must fight for him to live. Do you see the difference, Spock?”

The sun filled apartment, the laugher, the smiles. Jasmine taking Jim’s hand and Jim turning to smile at Spock. 

_He looked at her in a way he had never looked at anybody else. Until you._

_The way Jim looks at you and the way you look at Jim._

His warmth, his eyes, his lips. The fluttering of his ribcage where his heart had pressed against Spock’s chest, fast and alive. His mind inside Spock’s, beautiful and vibrant, an extension of his own essence, as if he had always been there.

_You know, when I was alone, I hated school trips. The house got so empty without her that I couldn’t sleep. But now… (now I have you)._

_I might have developed feelings for you._

Fight for him to _live_. Do you see the difference?

_I think that you love him, I think that you love him more than I do._

“I do.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You asked, I listened! Thank you so much for the people who left a comment. You always made my day guys, especially before my exam when I was super stressed, you gave me the strength to go on. So thank you, really, from the bottom of my heart.  
> I wrote in the comments that I intended to make this a series, but then I realised it wouldn't make sense. Between chapter 2 and this one only hours or half a day passes. So here it is :)
> 
> And many thanks to the best person in the world, who happens to be called @to-spirkly-go on Tumblr and shall remain otherwise nameless, who puts up with me when I complain and encourages me to write. I would have never published anything without her. All the credit to you, my dear <3

  
Spock stood up suddenly from his post, panic and pain whitening his vision. “We are moving in the wrong direction.”

“Spock?”

“We are moving in the wrong direction, Captain.” He bat his eyelids, willing the brightness away. His ears rang with a sinuous, cottoned pitch, high and painful. 

The Captain’s words were booming and far, as if spoken under water. This was not a positive prognostic condition. Doctor McCoy had been right about his estimations on how long it would take the strain to affect him functionally. “Ensign Chekov, check again that the route is correctly set to Vulcan.”

“We are moving towards Vulcan, Sir.”

“Then she is not on Vulcan,” Spock said, then fell back in his chair, too weak to stand. The distance to Jim was making it harder to focus on Jasmine’s mind and not lose himself in the vortex of Jim’s pain. It was straining him more than he had anticipated.

“Spock,” the Captain said, closer now, “you’re aware that this is time sensitive, yes?”

“Yes,” Spock said, fixing his sightless gaze on the ground to avoid being recognised as ill by the Captain.

“And that you look like you’re going through a bad Andorian flu and your mind could be compromised?”

“Submit me to the relevant medical check-ups, Sir. We will still be moving in the wrong direction when they are done.” He managed to look up, squinting at the too bright lights. “I would not put Jasmine nor Jim’s safety in jeopardy if I was not certain, Sir.”

The Captain sighed, Spock heard it. He recognised it. He was going to agree. “Okay. Okay, yes. Where should we go, then, Spock?”

“Change our course to minus thirty-five point seven-zero-nine degrees on X and plus twelve point four-two-three degrees on Y.”

“Heard that, Chekov?”

“Yes, Sir. Inserting new direction now and changing course.”

“Spock? Go in my ready-room and lie down. I won’t relegate you to medical or your rooms, but you can’t work in this condition. Call your substitute and go. You can COMM us or step on the bridge any time if you feel we need to adjust the route again.”

The route was changed seventeen times in two days. In the meantime, Spock ate when he was told to, and lay on the floor of the Captain’s room, his eyes closed, focusing. Half of him was attempting to create a link to Jasmine, so the strain of constantly looking could be diminished. The other half of him had a strong grasp on Jim, and was constantly pulling him, not letting him fall away.

Food had lost all flavour. Sleep did not come. Medics kept coming to inject him with boosters and nutrients, but it did not remedy his decline for longer than ten minutes. He was spiralling. His body was consuming all energies available to keep Jim from being lost, to grasp on Jasmine and not let go. Meditating was dangerous because his mind attempted to remove the aggravating elements from his psyche and Katra, to let them go. Therefore, Spock stopped. His condition worsened consequentially. 

When the last change in direction found a merchant Orion ship on the scanner, Spock asked for Doctor McCoy to intervene. He was too weak to stand. His last three meals had been given to him liquid.

“It is the right ship. I must go. We do not hold a permission to search it and must do so in secrecy. If she is hidden, you will not find her.”

“I get it, Spock, but this? McCoy said that if you take this and you’re not given the antidote in six hours, you’ll very likely fall into a coma!” The Captain was not happy with Spock’s decision. His voice felt like a blade carving bone and skin inside his inner ear ducts.

“Vulcanshu healing coma is different to Human. It is not terminal nor dangerous.”

“Oh, right. Every Vulcan randomly goes into several consecutive days of unconsciousness, I’m sure! Spock, you can’t do this.”

“I must. The risks are too high not to.”

“Spock, I told you something in that hospital room. If you don’t-“

“I know my physiology, Sir. I will be fine. Please, let Dr. M’Benga inject me.”

“I can’t watch this, Spock, damn it! What will I write on the report? Watched my half dead XO being injected with a drug that could kill him?”

“Observed Commander’s Spock treatment and deemed him fit for duty. Sir.”

“This is ridiculous! You can’t possibly-“

“Please, Sir. Let me go. After Jasmine is safe aboard, I will rest and all will be well.”

“Jim is going to have my head.”

“ _Get in line_ ,” Doctor McCoy said from the speakers. “ _M’Benga, are you ready? Get a sterile field, I think it’ll work better if half of it goes into his spine_.”

The booster worked. Spock felt almost normal. He could still feel the pain from Jim’s mirrored sufferance and the strain of his lungs, but the rest of the symptoms that had weighted him down for three days had disappeared.

Still, when he stepped on the transporter, Captain Pike said: “You look like death ran you over, Spock.”

“A striking metaphor, Sir.”

“Okay, team. Three security officers will follow Commander Spock, three will follow me. If we get captured, we’ll break several diplomatic agreements, so let’s try not to.”

A chorus of yes, Sir-s followed his words.

“Keep the COMMs active but on silent unless you’re sure you’re alone. Everybody must be back to the meeting point in three hours. Check-ins every half hour reduced to fifteen minutes if you get separated from your group. The Enterprise will raise shields, so emergency transport will activate after ten seconds if you need it: remember to count it and take cover for the wait. Phasers on stun if forced to engage. Everybody ready? Good. Energise.”

They were beamed to the cargo bay, finding themselves surrounded by boxes and crates holding weapons. 

Starfleet weapons. 

It was not a good premonition.

“Sir,” Spock said, “I believe this is a black market tradeship. It gives us permission to search it if we can prove our discovery was prior to our appearance here.”

“Let’s not get their attention before we’re safely back on board, Spock. Any idea of a general direction?”

Spock nodded. “That way.”

“Okay. We’ll round the area to search for guards. I’ll give you the go ahead.”

“Yes, Sir.”

The Captain’s team took twelve minutes to check the area. Spock’s hands had started shaking again. It did not matter. He could feel Jasmine’s presence on the ship. They would be back in less than six hours. All would be well.

Spock signalled his team to fall in and started walking. The ship was convoluted and dirty. The cargo bay did not hold all of the merchandise. Containers and boxes were distributed randomly in all corridors, some containing weapons, some containing animals, other containing alien artefacts Spock had never seen before.

They stunned ten Orion crew-members. The number of people walking the corridors seemed to increase as they neared Jasmine. He forced himself not to elaborate on what it might imply.

Spock’s COMM buzzed. He signalled stop and moved to take cover behind a corner, then opened it. 

“ _Spock, this is Pike. We found kids. I repeat, we found twelve kids held in cages. Five of them are Vulcans and were in Jasmine’s class. They said there are twenty more captives that they know of, three of them kids. From initial scans, they’ve all been drugged. They haven’t seen Jasmine since they were transferred from the shuttle to this ship. What’s your status?_ ”

“I fear Jasmine is located in the living quarters.” Stating out loud the words that had been spinning in his mind made his chest tighten. His suspicions were becoming more real every step. The Captain stayed silent for seven seconds.

“ _This is now a military level rescue operation, Commander. You are free to engage as you deem fit_.”

“Yes, Sir.”

They kept walking. He must not think of the possibilities. Jasmine was strong, clever, and her father had taught her how to stay safe. She must be hiding. She must be hiding like that day Spock had found her at the Embassy. She must have been more awake than the other children and escaped the moment she could, thanks to the energy she had taken from Jim. She was there only to hide. The alternative was… the alternative was unacceptable.

“Commander?”

“Yes, Ensign?”

“You are… shaking visibly, Sir. Perhaps it’s best if one of us takes point and you give us directions?”

Spock stopped. The shaking had indeed transferred from his hands to his arms and to his shoulders. It had not yet affected his legs. It would not affect his aim. 

“I am fine.”

The corridors were becoming cleaner and emptier as they proceeded. Spock did not need to be able to read Orion script to know that the door they needed to enter must be the one to the Captain’s quarters. Two guards were posted outside. He shot them both.

When he stood up from his crouch to walk forward, he faltered, and fell hard against the wall, his vision blurry and his head spinning.

“Sir? Sir!”

“Check the room,” Spock said, slowly sliding to the ground and tightening his hold on the phaser, “I will offer cover until you clear it.”

“…Yes, Sir.”

Spock heard their steps, the door being forced, a female scream, shots being fired, then silence. Steps, steps, steps. Another door.

“Clear, Sir!” Ensign Tuvoul had exited the quarters and was coming in his direction. “She isn’t there.”

“Assist me,” Spock asked, his breaths laboured, and held out a hand. The Ensign pulled him up and helped him walk to the rooms. The smell of perfumed vapours made him immediately nauseous. The rooms were in semi darkness, blue and green lights dancing on the ceiling, steam making his eyes burn. “Cover the door,” Spock ordered.

The woman who had screamed was unconscious on the ground, but nobody else was there.

He felt Jasmine everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Focusing on the bond was nearly impossible, and focusing on her was like attempting to grasp smoke.

“I do not understand,” he said, “I was sure-“

Three shots were fired behind him. Spock turned to see his team on the ground, phasers wounds bleeding profusely, their faces slack and their eyes unseeing. An Orion male had appeared inside the room surrounded by five guards, all with Starfleet weapons pointed at him.

The man shook a device in his hand, blaring blue light and emanating… emanating Jasmine’s presence. A trick. This had been a trick. “A telepathic emitter, set on the Kirk kid’s brainwaves. Some fog to help the mimetic shield. The vapours so you wouldn’t smell us. Tell me, Commander Spock,” he sneered, his accent thick and liquid, “did you really think that Starfleet could come here and put its nose in our business without consequences? Did you really think we would just let you?” 

The phaser shot burned him more than the drugs, knocking him unconscious.

When Spock came to his senses again, he was on the floor. He was not in the Captain’s room anymore. Beneath him, cold and unrelenting, shaking with every movement, was the familiar hard metal floor of a docked shuttle. Around him, harsh noises of heavy objects being moved and pushed. And two voices. They kept coming and going, carrying things to set near his position and walking away to collect others. When Spock listened with more attention, he realised there was a door closing between himself and the place where they went to retrieve the objects, and their stay behind it was approximately twelve seconds long. They opened it and left it open as they walked and set the objects in his vicinity, then they closed it when they went back to retrieve more.

The moment he heard it close behind them, he opened his eyes and searched his own pockets. His hands were shaking uncontrollably and he had trouble coordinating his movements, though he felt the emergency transporter still inside the inner pocket of his stealth uniform. He lay back down, eyes closed and body willed to stillness, and waited for the door to open, for the steps and noises to come and go, and the door to close again. 

“Spock?” 

He snapped his head to the side. There, inside a grated cage too small for comfort, was Jasmine, her blue eyes widened in fear, her arms dirty and encrusted in blood, hugging her knees to her chest.

“Jasmine,” he breathed, relief filling him, and moved his hand to reach out to her when the door opened again. Spock closed his eyes and lay motionless, hid mind calculating how likely it was that the two people would notice his change in position. They did not. 

The door closed behind them and silence fell.

“Are we still attached to the Orion Merchant ship?”

“Yes.”

“How long have I been asleep?”

The door opened and Spock closed his eyes. His hands were trembling even when he let them rest against his body, making their discovery more and more likely each second.

If the people finished with the cargo boxes and drove the shuttle away from the merchant vessel, and away from the Enterprise, before he could come up with a plan, the transporter would not work.

If the Enterprise had already left, they were already doomed.

The door closed again.

“Twenty-three minutes,” Jasmine whispered immediately.

How long could his transport from the Captain’s room to the shuttle have taken? How long would Captain Pike wait? No. He was not lucid. Captain Pike would wait for days. He should not worry about the Enterprise. It would be there. It must.

Spock moved his hands up his chest, using all his will to make them as stable as possible, and reached below the front opening of his jacket, inside the pocket. He could barely fit his hand inside or control it to stay still for enough seconds.

The door opened. He lay motionless, his hand still on his chest and shaking, his ears perceiving Jasmine holding her breath in fear, his own mind reminding him of the high chance that he would be discovered. He was not.

The door closed.

His fist grabbed the emergency transporter on the third try, and he prayed that his tremors did not activate it on purpose.

The door opened. Steps, boxes, steps. The door closed.

“Is there a forcefield around you?”

“No, only the bars are electrocuted.”

He moved his arm from his chest to the ground, all of his focus on the emergency transporter, so small and fragile in his fist, knowing that a spasm from his hand muscles could break it far too easily.

The door opened.

Steps, boxes. Silence. One of the two walked back, the other spoke something in Orion. Spock did not understand. Jasmine held her breath again. The other answered. Silence fell as Spock wished them both back inside the room with all his will. After seven seconds, steps, steps, and the door closed.

“Take this,” Spock whispered, holding the transporter, as close as he could, to her cage. Jasmine’s fingers exited the bars and grabbed it. For a moment, he felt like it would fall on he ground, then, she rapidly brought it inside with her.

“What-“

The door opened. 

Steps, boxes, silence. Spock’s head was hurting more than it ever had. He knew his vision would fail him in only a handful of minutes. He could feel his heart beating more than two hundred times per minute over the physiological rhythm. His trembling hands were going numb. Six hours, Dr. McCoy had told him.

The door closed.

“It is an emergency transporter,” Spock whispered. “It activates after ten seconds, pressing the grey lever on the side. Do you see it?”

“Yes.”

Spock planted his hands on the floor and tried to get his body closer to her cage. They had not chained him. Based on the pain in his head, he had been hit with a maximum stun. Normally, it would take him at least eight hours to wake, and that must be why he was not restrained. McCoy’s drugs had fastened his awakening, saving them both.

The door opened.

He must find a way to grab hold of Jasmine after she pushed the lever, hoping that the transporter would take hold before the two people exited the door again. They had taken fourteen, eight, twelve, and sixteen seconds intervals in the last four trips. In the eighteen trips before, only two intervals had been below ten seconds. They would have to risk it.

The door closed.

Spock looked at the bars. He could probably bend them without much noise. He moved closer.

The door opened.

Steps, boxes, steps.

It closed.

Spock grabbed the bars and grunted against the pain of the shock, covering Jasmine’s gasp. He pulled until he heard the door handle twist and fell to the ground before the door cold swing open.

They waited. His fingers had lost all feelings and he did not know if he could bend them again.

The door closed.

He could. He grabbed and pulled again until he believed his hand would fit.

The door opened.

It closed.

“Next time the door closes behind them, activate the transporter and take hold of my hand. Whatever happens, do not let the transporter go. Whatever happens, kan-bu. It will take us to the Enterprise.”

“Okay.”

The door opened.

Spock was not religious. He did not think Jim nor Jasmine were either. Lying there, his head pounding and his hands numb, he wished he was. He wished he had a divinity to ask for mercy and let the two Orions’ next interval of absence be longer than ten seconds.

The door closed.

Spock heard the click and immediately grabbed hold of Jasmine’s hand. He was careful not to graze the bars, knowing it would hurt her too. She was gripping him strongly, her nails digging in, and all of her fear was travelling uncontrolled through their contact.

Six more seconds.

Voices. The door opened.

“Hoya!”

In another life, in another place, with another child, maybe Spock would have seen the logic of staying still. He would have waited for his mind to compute the chances, calculate how long it would take for the Orions to run from the door to their bodies, the likelihood that they would take the transporter from them or manage to divide them in five point twenty-three seconds.

In this life, in this place, with this child, any chance, no matter how minimal, was too high a risk to Jasmine’s safety. Any chance was too high to take. 

So he did not.

He did not know where he gathered the strength. His arms did not work below the elbows. His legs were shaking so intensely, he never thought he would manage. But he did. He released Jasmine’s hand, ignored her cry of panic, and screamed “Keep hold of it!” In Vulcan, before standing and running and throwing his body against the guards, using his weight to slam them as harshly as he could against that door, taking two shots to his torso.

They fell to the ground and Spock had time to turn, to bite them and move his legs to trip them, and when one of the pushed him and his body could do nothing but roll, he saw Jasmine’s body surrounded by the energy of the transporter, her eyes wide and lucid with human tears, her hand outstretched to him.

“Spock!!”

“Save your father,” Spock whispered, “let the healer-“ and in a swirl of lights, she was gone.

The phaser they used to knock him unconscious did not even hurt.

  
Spock’s emergency transporter activated from an external shuttle. 

_Spock’s emergency transporter activated from an external shuttle_.

Pike ran. He ran, ignoring the shrills and screams of the people he narrowly avoided in the corridors, sliding down Jeffrey tubes until his hands burned, running and running until the doors to the transporter room opened, his heart in his throat, his breathing harsh, his eyes wildly scanning every surface until-

“I’m sorry, Sir,” the Ensign said immediately, “I can’t get her to-“

“Uncle Chris!” Jasmine sobbed, and ran from the corner of the transporter straight to his open arms, shaking as a leaf. “Spock,” she called, “Spock! Get him too!”

“Where is he?” Christopher asked, raising his eyes, because he must have just missed the black form of his XO in stealth gear, being so used to seeing him in blue. But. He hadn’t. “Ensign,” Chris said, standing up and bringing Jasmine up with him, his arms shaking as much as her, “where is Commander Spock?”

“I’m trying to get him, Sir. His COMM isn’t on the radar and I can’t see anything but empty space from the place she beamed from.”

“Jazz,” Chris said, trying to sound as soothing as possible, but feeling panic take hold of his throat. Spock had barely been conscious just four hours before. And now, he hadn’t come back. “Jazz, was Spock with you? What happened? Where were you? Jazz?” He placed her back on the ground and kneeled before her. Copying Jim and feeling immensely inadequate.

“W-we were on a shuttle. He gave me t-the emergency trans-porter,” Jasmine said, her words chocked and stuttered by sobs so big they were shaking her entire chest, “he said n-not to let g-go of it. He grabbed m-my hand, but the the O-orions came back from t-the door, a-and he left me and j-jumped at them. He- He said- He said to save my dad! I tried reaching for him, I s-swear, Uncle Chris, I tried but the cage hurt and I couldn’t, I’m s-so sorry, I’m so sorry-“

“Ensign, they can’t have warped out already, find the damn shuttle and get my First Officer back, now!!” At his harsh words, Jasmine sobbed harder, hiding her face in her hands. “Shh, sorry. I’m sorry, kid. It’s not your fault. Spock knew what he was doing. He’s a trained officer, the best officer, he knows what to do. He’ll be fine. We’ll get him back in no time.”

“Sir, we can’t-“

“Keep trying!”

“I’m-m so sorry,” Jasmine sobbed once more, and Chris took her in his arms again, caressing her back and shushing her, warming her skin in wide strokes, like he had seen Jim do so many times. “I tried, I did, I t-tried but I couldn’t-“

“It’s not your fault, kid. It’s not your fault. You’re okay now. We’ll get Spock back in no time.”

“Sir, we really can’t-“

“Keep trying. They can’t have disappeared. Look for anything. If even a single particle moves in the area we beamed her from, I want to know it.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Spock should never have left the Enterprise. He shouldn’t even have left the hospital. Christopher should have stopped him. But he hadn’t. Six hours. They had less than two left. 

He had no intention of going back to Jim without the man his son loved.

“Jazz, we need to go to Medbay. Listen to me, now. I know you’re scared. But you need to let a healer check your mind- please, no, don’t. Please, Jazz, don’t fight. She is trusted. Spock trusted her, okay? She’s his friend. We need to check your mind because you have a bond with your dad and he’s hurting because of it. Please, Jazz. Please, come with me.”

  
Spock could count the time perfectly in any situation. Pike couldn’t. He didn’t know if Jasmine could. He hoped the answer was no. 

She had cried all the way to MedBay, holding his hand in a vice. He could feel the bruises forming. How long had passed? The healer had said it wouldn’t take longer than five minutes, but it felt like ages since she had placed her hand on Jasmine’s dirty, blood-stricken face, stable against her shakes, her sobs. Ages since Jasmine’s desperate eyes had turned distant, had stopped looking at him pleadingly and had just turned void. 

Christopher felt numb. MedBay kept brimming around him, though it was thousands of miles away. He had shipped out to save his son. His niece. His family. He had left, to save all that was dear to him. He’d left with the knowledge that he would do anything to succeed. That it was the best choice, the only choice.

But nothing felt right. Spock’s heavy steps as he had guided him out of Jim’s room had felt wrong. Spock’s pale skin, his shivers, his dry lips as he had accepted water he would throw up, had felt wrong. Watching his eyebrows twitch when M’Benga had punctured his spine had felt wrong. Watching him walk on the transporter, pale and ghostly, had felt wrong.

Forcing Jasmine into this felt wrong. Her distant face, her empty eyes, her death grip on the linens, felt wrong.

He had made a promise. He had fought to keep it. Now though, he didn’t know if he could. He didn’t know if he had already failed. He could bring the pieces back together, but maybe- Maybe they wouldn’t fit. Maybe this had gone too far, the pieces had been damaged too much, so much that their edges wouldn’t fit again.

And if Spock didn’t come back with them. If he didn’t-

If he didn’t, Chris didn’t think he could save anyone. Not even himself.

  
“You will pay for this.”

He had been chained to a flat surface. It changed little. Spock would not have been able to move even if he had been given the chance. 

His hands were forced open.

“Bringing Starfleet and taking my ship. My cargo. When I am finished, you will wish for death.”

He had believed his hands and legs to have lost all sensation, all sensory inputs. They had not.   
He had believed himself unable to speak or utter any sound. He was not. 

The droplets of corrosive acid fell on his palms at random intervals. And Spock screamed. He screamed, pain burning and scalding, destroying his nerves, lighting up his brain in red agony, his conscience curling around Jim, around his warm light, cradling him, cradling his fragile remains. _Fight for him to live_. At all costs, he would.

“You found the kid with telepathy. You will never use it again. Never. You will never meld with anyone. This is the price you will pay. And then you will die.”

  
One hour had passed. They were sixty-three minutes from McCoy’s limit. Jasmine had exited the meld pale and shaking. She had refused to let anyone touch her. Even him. She’d fallen asleep for exhaustion, curled up, her fists clenching the blankets, her face streaked by tears. 

“Sir.”

Chris took his eyes away from her, from the small crease between her eyebrows that was so much Jim, it clenched his heart in nostalgia. He’d seen that crease so many times, since the day he’d met him, small and angry, fighting for every breath. It hadn’t been on his face when Chris had left him at the hospital. He’d checked. 

Jim had been too weak even for that.

“Yes?”

“Dr. McCoy is on the line, Sir. He is rather insistent and said this couldn’t wait. I brought you a COMM.”

“Thank you.” He braced for it. Braced for the worst. Spock was more than likely in a coma. No trace of the shuttle had appeared on their scanners. Jasmine was asleep, likely surrounded by nightmares. Every piece that had been holding Jim together was broken. He braced himself for the possibility that he would come back with nothing, to nothing. “Pike here.”

“ _Jim’s breathing on his own!_ ”

“...what?”

“ _He’s just got an oxygen mask, no respirator, and his saturation is ninety-nine. His heart-rate’s up, his EKG normalising, his EEG getting closer to REM sleep. He’s going to be fine! I guess you got the kid?_ ”

Pike jumped to his feet, his hands hesitating over Jasmine’s form, still unable to fully believe what he was hearing. “I… Jim’s going to be fine?”

“ _Perfectly fine, the lucky bastard! No sign of brain damage, despite the cartwheels with the telepaths. No sign of organ failure. He’ll be good to go in less than a week, ready to whine about physical activity restrictions. I’ve never looked forward to hearing him complain so much. So, you on your way, then? ETA?_ ”

Jim would survive. Jasmine would survive. He should feel happy. He should feel relieved. 

He didn’t. 

“We can’t find Spock. He sent Jasmine back with his Emergency Transporter to save her life. He was on a shuttle, no sign of it yet.”

“ _Wait, wait, wait. Spock’s not there? But it’s been-_ “

“Five hours since the dose. I know. I… we won’t leave until we find him.”

“ _Okay, then. I… I’ll think of something if you can’t get him before the time’s up. I’ll find something that will stabilise him enough to- Ambassador? What are you doing here?_ ”

“ _The nurse showed me to your office for the subspace COMM line, Doctor. I must speak to Captain Pike urgently, if you please_.”

Pike steadied himself. He knew the best words for this. He’d spoken them before, for many other crew-members he’d lost. He knew them, and yet he felt like the kid he’d been on the first day of the Academy. He felt as helpless as he’d been watching Winona walk away from Jim. Small and insignificant in front of a damage so big. “I’m on the line, Ambassador.”

“ _Is the child safely on board?_ ”

“She is, Sir. But we’re missing Spock and the three people of his team, so we’re-“

“ _My son is not missing_.” Pike frowned. Was it possible that the Vulcans had found him before- “ _Spock is dead. His parental bond with me was violently broken. Where he was, there is nothing_.”

Silence filled the line. Pike could hear his heart pounding in his ears. This wasn’t possible. Spock had been captured. He was an officer of the Federation, he was valuable, and harming him was a severe crime and not even Orion illegal traders would be so foolish to-

“ _He left knowing that he might lose his life for his bondmate and his daughter. I will not risk his sacrifice being in vain. I have contacted the Vulcan Consulate of Theresis IV, they are preparing a ship to search for his body and will likely accept to search for your missing crew. You have immunity for the unprovoked search of the Orion ship and have been given permission to return immediately, for strenuous circumstances. Bring the child back to her father. He will need her when he wakes and his bondmate is no more._ ”

Pike hadn’t cried since that day in the neonatology ward, deep inside the intensive care cradle, when Jim had stopped breathing, and Chris had believed him lost. He’d always thought that nothing could be worse than that. Nothing could be worse than losing a child like that. He’d always thought he’d never cry again.

He’d been wrong. On so many things, on everything, he’d been wrong.

He ignored the nurses, the doctors, the crew-members. The calls, the questions. He asked M’Benga out of his own office, barely pronouncing the words. And the door closed behind him, leaving him alone.

He fell to his knees. And cried.

  
Jim hadn’t stopped drinking for the hangovers. He’d stopped drinking for Jasmine. One beer, maximum two, never more. Going with Bones to the bars, he’d missed it. Just slightly. He’d missed the lightness that came in the few minutes after the first sips. The liquidness of his thoughts. He hadn’t missed the hangovers, though. Never them.

He remembered them all too well. He remembered his head pounding, his skin sweating cold, his hands trembling, his legs heavy. His thoughts mushy. He’d never thought he’d experience it again. So why was he?

Fuck, he couldn’t even move his arms. Or his hands. Opening his eyes felt like blinking inside a cloud of dust. 

He squinted in the darkness, noises around him, trying to make sense of what he was hearing. Beeps and tuts. Repetitive, stable. He knew them. He’d heard them before. Hospitals. Had he drunk himself into a coma? Why didn’t he remember? Had they drugged him? Was Jasmine okay, he didn’t remember leaving her with Chris, and if he hadn’t then-

“Easy, kid.” Bones. His voice cottoned and booming, as if coming from miles away, brought by the wind. “Can you hear me? Can you tap your index?”

Bones wasn’t mad. Why wasn’t he mad? He was usually mad when Jim pulled something like this. Something that got him in the hospital without knowing what the hell was going on. Was this serious? 

He tapped, feeling the pull of gravity harder than ever before, his tendons pulling at his hand as he raised his finger.

“One for yes, two for no, all right?” Tap. “Good. Can you open your eyes again?”

Jim tried. He managed to blink his eyelids open for a few seconds, then the itching and burning became too much, and he closed again. He groaned when Bones pulled them back open, shining a light at them. Or, he tried. His throat felt like he’d swallowed sand and not much came out. 

“Ice chips are coming as soon as I’m sure you won’t choke on them,” Bones said, “do you know why you’re here?”

Jim thought about it, really tried, but reality was hard to grasp. Anything that wasn’t there, immediate and loud, was hard to keep hold of. He didn’t know. He tapped twice.

“‘Kay,” Bones said, “it will come. Don’t you worry. Your head hurt?”

It did. Nothing he couldn’t sleep off, though. He tapped thrice.

“What’s that supposed to mean, hm? Nyes? Idiot. If it hurts I’ll give you something for the pain. No hypo, I promise. I’ll add it to your IV.”

Jim tapped once, still kind of freaked out by how calm Bones sounded. Usually, this was the time for the drilling. If Bones hadn’t rained the wrath of God on him yet, Jim must be worse off than he felt. Usually just knowing that Jim was conscious and could hear him was enough to set him off. If his head hurt and Bones’s curses made it worse, even better, he said it was even more deserved. But not now. And it kind of freaked Jim out, because it must mean something was serious. But he felt… fine. Shitty, but fine. Like a bad hangover. Nothing to fuss about. Nothing worthy of being treated like he was made of glass. Because he wasn’t, was he? He felt fine.

“Jazz is with Chris, in the waiting room. I haven’t let her in yet, I’m waiting to get some of these machines off of you, kid. Don’t wanna scare her. But if you want her, I’ll get her for you. Your choice. In sterile scrubs, of course. Your immune system has retired for the year, I guess.”

Jasmine was with Chris. Jim was only a little battered, for something he didn’t even remember. There was no need to traumatise her. He was fine. He felt fine. Shitty but fine. Like he didn’t have to worry. So he didn’t. He tapped twice. 

“Okay, kid. I’ll give you something to help you sleep some more. I’ll wake you in eight hours and we’ll see if some of this stuff can come off. You warm enough?”

No, actually. He was cold. Colder each minute he thought about it, as if he was peeking over something, revealing more and more. So didn’t. He went back to drifting in the cottoned mist of his confusion, where everything was fine. It wasn’t enough to warm him, so he tapped twice.

“Want a blanket?” 

He wanted Spock, actually. Spock was always warm. Scalding. But if Spock wasn’t there, there must be a reason, right? He just couldn’t think of one because he was tired and drugged. But there must be. A logical, fine reason.

Oh. His parents. Spock was with his parents. Jim was glad Spock wouldn’t have to see him like this. He’d just worry, and he shouldn’t, Jim felt fine. Really? He did, yes, really.

So it didn’t bother him. That Spock wasn’t here. And he was so out of it that if he focused, he could almost feel Spock against himself anyway, around him and inside him, surrounding him like he had on the meld. So he was fine. Really? Really! A blanket would be enough. He was already falling asleep. He was fine. Was he sure? Yes, he was. He tapped once.

“Okay,” Bones said, his hand warm as he left a caress against his skin, as he fitted one cover over his body, then another. “Comfy?”

Jim tapped once. Then realised Bones couldn’t see it. So he twitched his eyebrow up, like Spock always did and Bones said was freaky, because if Bones was so worried then maybe Jim should just try something funny. That was how it worked between them. But Bones didn’t find it funny. 

Bones choked on his breath. Jim tried to frown, wondering if it really had bothered him so much-he’d thought Bones had liked Spock?-but falling inexorably and swiftly into darkness again, sleep welcoming him warm and familiar, strong and solid, as if Spock’s arms were truly around him. He was fine. Everything was fine. Really? Really.

Who was he trying to convince, anyway? It wasn’t like anyone else was in his head.

  
Jim woke up three times in five days, never awake longer than five minutes, and never remembering. Chris caught him once. He savoured each instant. Everyday, more machines came off him. The third time Jim woke, he barely had anything on him at all, just monitoring and IV. He could pass for an unlucky cadet who had gone through a bad appendicitis. And he was happy. He looked so happy. So relaxed. Sleepy, funnily confused, but with a smooth, calm face. 

He said he’d dreamed of their vacation in London. Chris remembered it, though not as well as he’d have liked to. He remembered Jim’s smiles as Jasmine, four years old and already on her way to take on the world, had made sure to tell each person she’d managed to stop on the pavement that their historical attachment to driving on the other side of the road was illogical. Chris had barely pulled them both off the stairs to a police station; Jasmine had stated that she was sure she could speak the British police into switching their driving side to the right one, Jim had found nothing wrong with that idea.

Jim said, mushed and stuttered on his parched throat, Spock would have loved that. He would have helped her draft a letter to send to their Ministry of Transportation. Chris smiled, waiting for the question that never came. The question that everyone was waiting for, holding their breath. Where was Spock? Was he coming? Or could someone get him? Maybe even on the COMM?

But Jim didn’t ask. He smiled with the serenity of a child and just fell back asleep.

And the weight on Christopher’s chest didn’t ease. Because Jim would ask. How could he not? Jim would ask, and then he would know. He would know what Chris did, what McCoy did. He would know what Christopher had allowed to be done to his love under his watch. 

Jim would know that he’d left Spock behind. That he hadn’t even bothered to search for a body to bring back home.

And so they waited. Everyone too afraid to break the bubble. Too afraid to face the enormity of what they’d done, mirrored in Jim’s eyes. Too afraid to face the truth, barely able to stand seeing Sarek and Amanda Grayson coming to the waiting room each day, waiting for Jim to be awake long enough to allow a healer to collect their son’s Katra. 

Even Jasmine. She sat, silent and quiet, on the seat Chris put her into. She didn’t wander. She didn’t run. She didn’t ask to see her dad. 

She looked at the door to Jim’s room in the same way she’d looked at the emergency transporter before putting it away in her pocket, her hand brushing over it repeatedly, as if checking if it was still there. Chris had opened his mouth to speak, that day. Because he knew how dangerous an attachment like that could be for a child. He knew how much of them it could take away. He’d seen Jim at her age clenching his father’s Cadet badge in his fist, closing his eyes, whispering words, willing his dad back so he could fix his mom.

He couldn’t watch Jasmine hold the transporter in her sleep, willing Spock back. He couldn’t do that to her. He couldn’t do that to Jim.

But the healer had stopped him. She is distraught, she had said. Let the child have her hope.

And so Chris woke Jasmine up in his guest room, waited for her to come downstairs and stare at the breakfast he replicated, staring a bit too long, because her dad didn’t make it like that, but it was illogical to say. It wouldn’t bring him back faster. It wouldn’t make the sadness leave the air between them, it wouldn’t take the heaviness of their mourning from their breaths. He watched her eat with her eyes down, the shape of the transporter in her pocket. He watched her wait at the front door as he donned his uniform, the uniform that had allowed him to send Spock away like that, that had allowed him to leave him behind. 

And he watched her sit on the chair in front of Jim’s room, her hand on her pocket, her eyes on the door. He watched her clench her fingers over the transporter and shake. He watched her wait. He watched her as her world crumbled around her. As she watched the fragility of existence shattered under the feather weight of chance. As she looked from her pocket to the door, her eyes scared and human, as crystal as Jim’s. Maybe wondering if the universe could take her dad away too, like it had taken Spock, and leave her with something as small as a burned emergency transporter. Something so insignificant that it could fit inside a pocket. Through the metal grate of a cage.

Wondering, maybe, when the day was going to come when she would see her dad for the last time. 

And he watched her put it off. Staring at the door, at the gateway to the truth, and not venturing beyond until she was sure. Until she was sure that her dad would be fine. That her dad really had a chance, while clenching Spock’s last one in her hand.

She had her own bubble she didn’t want to break. 

And Chris couldn't force her. He had nothing to say. Nothing to do. Nothing to plan. 

He’d won, but he’d failed. And the storm of the consequences was there, on the edge of his thoughts, knocking at the white hospital door. Knocking on Pike’s last hope, on Jasmine’s fear. Ready to strike them all down.

Winona hadn’t even bothered to show up. 

But maybe it was better. He didn’t want her memory near Jim. He didn’t want the woman who had lost herself to her grief, anywhere close to that door, that storm. He didn’t want her anywhere near them. Because Jim was his, his son, his battle. And even if he could never be enough, he would try. Even if Jim would hate him. Even if he ran again.

He would try. He’d promised he’d fight, and he would. Always. He’d count the storm away and try again, and again, and again. Until Jim allowed him close enough to protect him. Like he had already failed to do, so many times.

“Coffee?” Chris raised his eye to Amanda Grayson’s face. In those days, she’d looked more Vulcan than her husband. More resolute, more severe. She didn’t even have a body to mourn, and it was his fault. She was here to wait for the chance to ask a question, and the answer might still be no. “My husband doesn’t take it, I wouldn’t mind the company. There’s a nice Café two blocks away.”

Chris turned to Jasmine, silent and quiet on his right, her hand over her pocket.

“Sarek can look after her,” Amanda said, “won’t you, dear?”

Sarek hadn’t sat down. Not once in five days. He kept coming and going, but he still spent hours there. He was elbows deep into an investigation, but when he joined his wife in their wait, he didn’t show it. He stood next to her chair and ignored the pinging of his PADD.

He had asked Jasmine seven questions, standing in a private room while Chris had sat beside her on an empty hospital bed, and had not spoken to either of them since. Chris had only received notice of his work through Starfleet. 

The Vulcan crew member who had accused Jasmine of having attacked him had been linked to seventeen more child disappearances, all of Vulcan heritage, though only by half. All hybrids, like Jasmine was. 

Jasmine had said, he touched me, so I bit him. Seven words, which had been enough for Sarek and nowhere enough for Chris. But he hadn’t asked. He hadn’t pressed. He didn’t know how. He didn’t know how not to make it worse.

The other kidnapped children of her class had been equally accused of false misbehaviours and all not pur Vulcanshus by birth. The healer that had examined them had lied, in agreement with the perpetrator. Since nobody could lie in a meld, and Vulcans do not lie, the Captain and the Teachers had believed them. No protest from the children, who were not completely Vulcan and therefore were logically not to be considered as truthful, had been heard. 

_Their mixed heritage is considered highly valuable in slave markets_ , the Starfleet reports had said. Chris had read it and his fists had made crumbles of his PADD. The healer brought to the Enterprise under Sarek’s recommendation had assured him that Jasmine had not been touched again. That no harm had befallen her. Jasmine had told Sarek that she had been considered too vicious, and therefore was put in an animal cage, to be brought to a different market, and not touched again. 

Which market, he didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to know what the vicious version of a children slave market was.

Sarek hadn’t asked either. 

But he had said, before leaving the room, _I thank you, Jasmine Kirk, for bringing light to my son’s life_. And Jasmine had said nothing, clenching the cube in her pocket, as a single tear had run down her cheek. 

She’d started raising her eyes, though. When Sarek and Amanda passed. She was the only one who did. She waited for Amanda to smile and Sarek to incline his head, then she looked back down, at the white closed door, lost again in her own storms.

“If the Captain and Ms Kirk are comfortable,” Sarek said. And then there was that. The purposeful mistake in her surname. Because he must know that Jazz was registered under T’Sharon’s family name. But Pike didn’t correct him, and neither did Jasmine.

Chris was going to say no. Amanda Grayson deserved to have his attention, she deserved to demand his explanation, she deserved to ask him for closure. But Jasmine came first. 

And yet, silent and quiet, Jazz nodded. She nodded, then looked up, met Sarek’s eyes, and took the hand away from her pocket to place it on the empty chair beside her, inviting him to sit.

And Sarek, for the first time, sat down, right next to her, his hands entwined on his legs.

“Let’s go, then,” Amanda said, and Chris shot Jazz one last look before standing up.

She was silent the whole way, and only asked for his coffee order. When they sat down, Chris was almost convinced that she’d really just asked him there for company.

“Do you think they’re going to be all right?”

He looked up slowly, meeting her eyes for what felt like the first time. “Jasmine and your husband?”

“Your godson and his daughter.”

“I don’t know,” he said, after a pause. Because the first answer in his head was no. But he couldn’t bring himself to say it. Couldn’t risk the chance that uttering it could bring it closer to coming true.

“Spock loved him,” she said. “He loved the girl, of course, who wouldn’t? But James Kirk? He loved him deeply.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” Amanda asked, with an edge Chris had only seen once, when he’d barged inside of Spock’s apartment. 

“I think I do,” Chris said. “I saw the way he looked at him. The way they looked at each other. I’ve never seen anything like that. Not even with Jim’s parents.”

“Spock would do it again, even if he knew he’d die at the end.” Amanda Grayson took the first sip of her coffee and didn’t dry the tears that fell from her eyes. Her voice didn’t waver with them. “If you let us, Sarek and I would like to be in his life. To know the person that meant so much to Spock. That made him so happy. He couldn’t shield his mind, in those last instants. Sarek felt it all. He said it was peaceful. That Spock’s last thoughts were to James Kirk and Jasmine, and the light and love they had brought into his life.”

“It was my fault,” Chris blurted out, because he couldn’t keep it in anymore. He couldn’t keep living with the people he’d hurt, with his guilt, with none of them screaming at him like he deserved.

“I read the reports,” Amanda said. “If Spock hadn’t gone, the girl would have disappeared. If she had, James would have died. Can’t you see, Captain? My son would have been lost either way. This way, his love will stay alive. He won’t be lost completely.”

“Why don’t you hate me?”

“Hate is illogical,” she said, with a small smile, “I’m sure Spock never missed the opportunity to tell you himself. It was the only good thing his father told him when he was bullied in school and Spock liked it. It wasn’t your fault. Spock knew what he was doing. To him, it was worth it. I think it won’t be difficult to see why, when your godson wakes. If it’s all right with you and him. And Jasmine.”

“Jim won’t want me in his life when he wakes up.”

“Spock wouldn’t have loved someone who doesn’t know forgiveness.”

“This goes beyond forgiveness. He’ll forgive, because it’s how Jim’s made. But he won’t forget. He never forgets. And I deserve that.”

“Children have a way of overcoming their parents’ mistakes,” Amanda said. “They’re built to do it. Otherwise, no family would exist, I would think. Not even mine.”

  
Jim’s panic attack hit on day eight, after he’d been awake for twenty minutes, smiling lazily at the nurse as she adjusted the dosage of his IV and complained about the weather.

It came all at once. The storm that had been brewing crashed heavy and fierce. Jim stopped smiling. Stopped breathing. Stopped blinking.

His eyes wide and unseeing, he wheezed and coughed and shook, the monitors screaming and wailing, the room filling with medics, with McCoy’s voice as he ordered them off, it wasn’t a code it was a panic attack. Give him space, he barked, and so Chris stepped away.

Jim didn’t want space. His voice, broken and distorted, was calling for him, calling for Jasmine, calling for Spock, and his hands were scratching at his throat and his chest and his arms and he didn’t stop spiralling, he didn’t stop trembling, until Chris and Jasmine were pressed at his sides, their arms around him, their tears mixing, his sobs shaking them all up and down, up and down.

And then Jim asked. 

Where is Spock.

And everything happened in half a second. Jasmine stiffened. Chris choked on his breath.

And Jim knew.

Where is Spock?

And Jasmine spoke for the first time in two days, her voice as broken as her dad’s, and said, “I’m sorry,” quivering with sobs and tears, repeating it again and all over again, bringing Jim in action immediately, his arms circling her small form, bringing her into his chest, shushing her and caressing her back in the way he only could, in the way Chris had tried to mimic but hadn’t managed, lulling her into sleep.

Jim’s eyes bore into his own, demanding. Strong. 

“Where is Spock?” His voice low, not to wake his daughter. His tone hard. The voice of a captain, the wonderful captain Chris may not have the honour of watching him become.

“Jim,” Chris started, but couldn’t. He couldn’t, oh god, he couldn’t. This was it. The eye of the hurricane. The calm before disaster hit again, harder, wiping away anything that was left. 

“ _Where is Spock_ , Chris?”

One more day. One more hour. One more minute. 

“ _Where is he?_ ”

“He’s dead, Jim.”

“Bullshit.” Jim’s face was betraying his exhaustion. He was close to passing out. But his eyes. They were fiercer than the storm. Bluer than the tempest of the sea. He wouldn’t fall asleep. Not until he had the truth.

“Jim,” Chris tried again.

“Bullshit.”

“Jim, I’m-“

“What happened?” Jim asked, his voice cracking over the pain, and Chris closed his eyes because he couldn’t do this. This was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do. 

But he had to. He’d promised. So he told him. Jasmine’s disappearance. McCoy’s call. Jim’s body, barely alive, breathing only thanks to a respirator and his attachment to Spock’s bond. The ceremony. Spock’s body that fit perfectly against Jim’s as he threaded them together telepathically. Spock’s promise. His promise. 

The trip. The route. The ship. The weapons and the children and the adults with numbers tattooed on their cheeks. Spock’s team not checking in. The wait. Jasmine’s story: the cage, the shuttle, the door. The emergency transporter, still in Jasmine’s pocket. The beam. Jasmine’s tears. The void. The healer, the wait. 

Jim breathing on his own and Sarek’s call. Spock breathing no more. 

Coming back without anything. Without a body. Without a trace. Waiting for Jim to remember, for Jim to wake up. The investigation. The market. Sarek’s questions. Amanda’s words. The bonds and _the bond_. The Katra they said they wouldn’t collect, the Katra that would stay with him if he’d have it.

“He’s not dead,” Jim said, his eyes wet with tears.

“Jim,” Chris tried. Again. And failed, watching his world crumble along with Jim’s soul.

“He’s not dead, you didn’t see him die, you can’t know.”

“His father-“

“Spock would never let his father into his mind.”

“He was dying, Jim, he couldn’t keep his shields-“

“ _He’s not dead!_ ” Jasmine flinching, Jim shushing her immediately. Chris watched, trying to carve it in his eyes, into his brain, because it could be the last time he ever saw it. Ever saw them. “He’s not dead.”

“Jim,“

“No! He’s not dead, you just left him behind! You left him behind! How could you leave him behind, Chris?”

“Jim-”

“ _How could you leave him behind?_ ” Jim cried, the tears falling, falling as rapidly Chris’s soul plunged into the depths of his guilt. 

He would remember this day forever. This instant, this moment. When Jim’s heart broke and it was his fault. When Jim broke, again, and he could do nothing, again.

“Get out,” Jim whispered, hiding his face in his daughter’s hair.

“Jim,” Chris tried again, forced himself to get it out. To close this chapter and know that he couldn’t offer anything else. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, kid.” Losing you would have been worse than losing him, he didn’t say. It had been the most devastating decision of his life.

“ _Get out_.”

Christopher did. He had nothing else he could say. Nothing else he could give. The door closed behind him, between him and the storm. Between him and the enormity of what he’d done. Amanda was there, so close she was breathing his same air, Sarek behind her. She offered a tissue. He took it, and dried the tears he could barely feel. 

“He remembers,” Chris said.

“How much did you inform him of?” Sarek asked.

“Everything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so. So. Before you start screaming at me. Just. Four things:
> 
> -I really like writing ANGST. I'm sorry. Oh boy, don't kill me. But I really like it. Even better if I can make people cry, I'm afraid.
> 
> -There will be at least one more chapter. This isn't the end. Hopefully it will come before the end of this week.
> 
> -To be fair, you guys asked me for *more chapters*, nobody specifically said *more chapters that are happy and fluffy*. So that was, like, a big mistake. Big, big mistake. (But even if you had I still would've written ANGST because... yeah.... sorry lol)
> 
> -As you already know, English isn't my first language and I don't have a beta yet and blah blah, so if you find a mistake, please point it out! :)
> 
> So yeah, everyone, you can go on and scream! We can all scream together! You can scream at me on Tumblr if you'd like, I'm Spockats there as well. 
> 
> Have a good weekend :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, fun fact-this chapter was ready one week ago, but my computer decided to stop working and I had to send it to support. I'm really sorry for keeping people waiting.

Chris left the hospital. He went to his office. He spent the night eying the bottle of Whiskey in his drawer, a gift from Archer for his promotion. Eying it only. Because Jim might be done with him, but Chris wasn’t done with Jim. So he couldn’t do that. He wouldn’t be like Winona and drink his sorrows away. He’d live through his guilt until every shred of him was soaked with it. Until every cell of his body suffered through it. 

He went home and stayed inside for four days, reading McCoy’s COMMs the instant they arrived. 

Jim had met Amanda and Sarek. 

Jasmine had been staying at their place because she couldn’t sleep at the hospital. Meaning, Jim must not want her to stay with him. 

Jim had decided to meet with the healer. 

Jim had started breathing without oxygen.

Jim had started eating solid food.

Jim had gone with Amanda and Jasmine to the hospital café, pushing the wheelchair on his own.

Jim had met with the healer.

Jim insisted Spock was not dead.

Jim refused to meet with the psychologist for grief counselling. 

Jim kept insisting Spock was not dead. 

Jasmine was starting to believe him. 

McCoy was close to forcing them apart, if Jim kept telling her that after she had barely started elaborating her grief.

Jim wanted to see him.

Chris put his lunch down and stared, unsure if he was reading correctly or if the exhaustion was playing tricks on him. _Jim wants to see you, -McCoy_. 

When, Chris typed. 

As soon as Chris could. IMP: go to McCoy’s office first to talk.

  
McCoy seemed happy to see him, but his face didn’t speak of good news.

“I’m seriously worried that Jim’s lost it,” he said immediately, before Chris could even close the door behind himself. 

“Why?” Chris asked, though he had a fair idea.

“Before he met with the Vulcan healer, I let it pass. He kept saying that Spock wasn’t dead, and I thought, fine, some people grieve like that, surrounded in denial. Wouldn’t have placed Jim among them, but it’s a mechanism I’m familiar with, he can grieve however the hell he wants. 

“Then he met with her, and she did some voodoo telepathic stuff on him to explain to him how the bonds worked, and he tried some basic communication with Jazz. After that, he’s been manic. He keeps insisting Spock’s alive. That he can feel it. 

“The healer went in like five times to check again through the bond if she could feel anything. She said she’s positive that Spock is dead, and Jim is feeling the phantom of his last thoughts and the remains of Spock’s katra, since it’s anchored to him. Jim keeps saying he’s sure. Amanda and Sarek both tried convincing him, saying it’s normal to feel like this when a Vulcan bond breaks, but Jim’s resolute it’s not an echo, it’s Spock being still alive. He says he can feel the pull into a specific direction and wants to go. You can guess what he’s going to ask you, right?”

Chris could. When Jim wanted something, nothing stood in his way. Not even betrayal. Chris wasn’t there for bridging any relationships. Chris was there because he was a captain. 

But that was fine. If it got him anywhere close enough to keep an eye out for Jim, being used was fine. 

“I can guess.”

“Pike,” McCoy said, “you can’t give him any hope. Nothing. This is the most unhealthy grieving attachment I’ve ever seen. And he’s pulling Jasmine into it. Amanda and Sarek are trying to keep her on the rational side, but she’s wavering. Who wouldn’t? Her dad says Spock’s alive. I’d believe him too if I were eight.”

“I won’t,” Chris said, sighing. Jim would hate him all the more, of course. Would keep him even further away after this. But it was for the best. He just hoped one day, Jim could forgive him at least this one thing. This one thing, Chris could actually say was only for Jim’s sake. Was justified in both the means and the ends.

“Nothing at all,” McCoy insisted.

“Nothing at all,” Chris said.

“And try and leverage a session with a therapist in.”

“I’ll… try.”

  
Jasmine wasn’t in Jim’s room when Chris entered. He looked around, at the windowsill and the chairs, but they were all empty.

“She’s with Sarek, meditating,” Jim said. “When Spock finds out he’ll think he’s still dreaming.”

 _When Spock finds out_. Chris took a breath, preparing himself to wreck whatever slim chance he still had to be in Jim’s life. “Jim-“

“No. I’ll talk; you’ll listen. I’m tired of everybody treating me like I’m nuts just because I’m still a patient in recovery. You owe me that, at least.”

He did. That, and much more. And this was Jim. His kid. This was Jim’s way of coping. His way of accepting what had happened and his way of avoiding being pulled down to drown. Nobody was listening to him. McCoy, Chris imagined, must not be gentle in his reminders that Jim was behaving, well, nuts. Chris owed him this. He owed his kid the chance to speak his part. To tell the story from his side. 

Jim was keeping it all together, the stars knew how, and all he was asking was to be listened to. 

“Okay, kid,” he said, “I’ll listen.”

“When I woke up, those first times I didn’t remember? I felt like shit. I felt like I had the worst hangover and had been in the worst car accident at the same time. But I was fine. You remember. I know you do. Everybody says I was woozy, but I wasn’t. I just didn’t remember everything. But I was fine. I felt like all the problems that had led me here, in this hospital, were solved. I knew I could go back to sleep because I knew that everything was fine. 

“And when I was between sleep and wake, I felt like part of me insisted on asking if I was really okay. And I had to convince it. I thought I was trying to convince myself, my subconscious or whatever shit a shrink would say. But then the healer showed me the bond! And I knew. I knew that hadn’t been me. I knew that had been Spock. I can feel it deep inside. He’s not conscious, not at all. He’s just feelings and sensations, but he’s there, all around my head. He’s alive. I feel him alive, as if he were next to me. I can feel his body in that direction, right there, pulling me in. He’s calling for me. 

“When I panicked, five days ago, he was there. He kept sending warm waves of comfort and bringing me tighter into him, to calm me down. I’m not imagining it, Chris. It’s not the ghost of his soul, it’s him. He’s alive. And you’re helping me to go and get him back.”

“Jim,” Chris started.

“No, I’m not done. Even if he’s dead. Even if he is, I know this pull is coming from him. Even if he’s dead, at least we’ll get his body. Something to bury, so he can rest. You owe him that. You know you do.”

“I do.”

“I still can’t believe you let him do this. I can’t believe you let him go on that ship! I can’t believe Bones injected him with that shit and you let him! I’m so angry, at all of you, and I’m going to sit each one of you down and scream at you when this is done. But not before we get Spock back.”

“Jim-”

“You owe it to me. And to him. You owe it to us to go look.”

“Jim, just wait a second, just think. This is… this is complicated, all right? More than you can see. For example, where will Jasmine stay?”

“With Amanda and Sarek. She said she’s fine with it.”

“Jim, I hear you, I do, really. But your kid has just been through some serious, life-altering trauma and you’ve barely managed to get beyond this room on your own, some part of you must realise how crazy the idea of leaving everything and-“

“No, don’t you give me the crazy speech!” Jim snapped, sitting up in the bed, his eyes flaming. “You don’t get to give me the crazy speech, none of you does! If he’s there, alone, and possibly dead, _it’s your fault_. It’s your fault, McCoy’s fault, the healer’s, and everyone else on that ship who didn’t stop you while you let that crazy plan go on under your noses! Why didn’t you stop? Why didn’t you stop when he could barely stand? Why couldn’t you figure out a plan to-“

“Because Jasmine was missing and he-“

“He could have told you where she was from the ship! He could have mapped a direction from where he was safe! He could barely stand! How could you let him go like that?!”

“You were dying,” Chris started, overwhelmed, because Jim was right but he was also wrong, he was right and Chris was guilty of so many things, but nothing in the world could ever stop him from doing everything in his power to-

“He was dying too!”

“ _He is not my son_!” Chris shouted, then squeezed his eyes closed and pressed his hand on them, knowing what was coming next and not able to watch. Not able to hear, probably, but deserving to be told. He braced for them, for the words he’d heard three times from Jim’s lips, with Jim’s eyes filled with rage, with despair and sadness. _You’re not my father_. 

But Jim stayed silent. 

“I’m sorry,” Chris said, falling against the wall, too exhausted to stand. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have yelled.”

Jim kept silent. 

Maybe he knew. Maybe he knew that Chris owed him something else. A reason, beyond his apologies. Something that would answer his questions. Something that could explain how Chris could have let Spock go, could have left him behind. How he hadn’t stopped when Spock had barely been able to stand. How he had watched him being injected. How he had watched him step on the transporter, the weight of his guilt already constricting Chris’s heart.

So Chris gave it to him. The last shred of his dignity. 

“Losing you would have been worse than losing him.” It was horrible, and selfish, and mean, and he was ashamed of himself so intensely that he could barely sleep at night. But it was the truth. And now Jim knew. 

And Chris had nothing else to give. Nothing else Jim could want from him. Nothing else to hide his shame, nothing to save him in the eyes of his kid.

“Look at me,” Jim asked, his voice soft. And how could Chris refuse him? Had he ever managed to refuse Jim anything? Had there ever been a chance that Chris would get out of this hospital room without COMM-ing the admiralty to ask for the Enterprise again?

He opened his eyes. Jim’s were wet, lucid and reddened, but open. Clear. 

“I know that. I’ll never blame you for that,” Jim whispered. “I’ll never blame you for caring for me more than you care for others. You know I care for you too. And you know why I can’t call you that word.”

“I do,” Chris murmured, “I do, kid. It’s okay.”

“I don’t blame you for trying everything in your power to save me. I blame you because Spock is the same. Because I know how much he must have insisted. I know that you must have fought him on this. But you let him win. You let him go. And I need to know that you’ll never let him martyr himself again. That if Spock is ever again in danger against your wishes, it will be because he disobeyed and not because you gave up the fight. Not because you let him.”

“Jim-“ Chris tried, but choked on it, on the knowledge that this was Jim forgiving him for the worst sin of his life. That this kid, this man, who had grown up with so little love and so much anger, found it in him to forgive him.

“I love him,” Jim said softly, his cheeks wet with tears. “I love him so much, and I know him better than I know myself. I know he does that. He’s more self-destructive than I am, he’s just better at hiding it. I need to know that you’ll be on his side as much as you’re on mine. That you’ll protect him like you protect me. You would have never let me off that ship, Chris. I want you to never let Spock off that ship too.”

“Jim-“

“I tried living without you,” Jim said, “it sucked. And I can’t call you dad because the word is ruined for me, but you’re that and you’re also more, because you didn’t leave like George did. You fought to stay at my side even when I sent you away. I know how much I’m asking, Chris, but please. Please, don’t leave me alone right now. I need you to trust me. Please. I need you to hug me like you did when you brought me away from Iowa and tell me it’s going to be okay.”

“Come here, kid,” Chris said, but Jim didn’t move as he walked across the room to the bed himself, sat down next to him and let him place his head on Chris’s shoulder. Let Jim’s tears soak his shirt. “You must know how crazy this sounds.”

“Please, Chris. I’m sure. I’m sure he’s alive. He’s there, all alone, calling me. Waiting.”

“And if you’re wrong?”

“Then we bring his body back.”

“Not that. If you’re wrong, Jim, are you sure you can handle it? You need to prepare for that too, kid. Because this doesn’t look as good as you think it does.”

“I won’t end up like Winona,” Jim said. “I won’t. But you’ll help me not to, right?”

“Yes, kid,” Chris whispered, “I’ll always be here to help you. Always. Never doubt that.”

  
Amanda’s eyes when Jim brought Jasmine to her were sad. Jim pretended he couldn’t see it. He also pretended that watching Spock’s apartment didn’t make him feel anything. At all. Because Spock was alive. He could feel him. He was bringing him back.

“Are you sure, sweetie? You can barely stand.”

“I walked here,” Jim answered, smiling, forcing his breaths to come normally, counting the seconds to the moment Amanda would close the door between them and he could wheeze. 

“He had to lean against the wall,” Jasmine said. 

“Did I walk or not?”

“You did.”

“Then shush. Do you have everything?”

“As I told you thrice: yes, dad.”

“Good,” Jim smiled, then bent down to give her a kiss on the head. “Behave, all right?”

“Anything else would be illogical,” Jasmine said, offended, but smiled briefly and pecked him on the cheek, her arms around him tight as ever. Jim hugged her back, imprinted the soft scent of her shampoo in his nose, the softness of her hair against his skin. “Bye, dad.”

“Bye, pumpkin,” Jim whispered, felt her slip away and watched her walk inside, fighting his anxiety down. She turned to watch him three times, her own fears crystal clear in her eyes and the small bow of her lips, and Jim forced his most convincing smile on his face, trying to be as encouraging and confident as he’d felt the night before, when he’d put her to bed with the promise of coming back with Spock. With reality setting in in the form of his Starfleet bag packed and set next to his feet, Chris’s words were realer than ever. What if he’s dead? You need to prepare for that too.

Could he ever? Prepare himself for something like that?

Jasmine disappeared behind a corridor, called by Sarek’s voice and his offer of tea. Their tea, she had told him at least ten times, was better than the one he made. Not even acting offended had made her relent. She had, however, rolled her eyes at his exaggerated complaints. He couldn’t wait for Spock to see her do it, couldn’t wait for him to be there so Jim could send an amused smile his way and Spock could raise a brow at him, reminding him Jazz might look exactly like her mother, but she was thoroughly and deeply Jim’s, now more than ever.

Since he’d woken up, her face had been losing more and more of the rigid control her school had imparted her. He’d seen her smile fully three times, once under the direct gaze of Sarek himself, who hadn’t batted an eye. Physical manifestation of an emotion does not entail its lack of control, Sarek had told him. Jim had barely stopped himself from provoking him, asking him if he’d ever told Spock the same thing. He knew the answer. It was no. Digging it up wouldn’t help anyone.

“How hard is it?” Amanda, ever observant, asked.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to leave her at school without crying,” Jim said truthfully. Or without Spock, he didn’t say, because he knew that it made Amanda sad. That she didn’t believe him, and she’d looked right through Chris’s excuse that they were going to look for Spock’s remains, to bring a body home.

“It’s totally normal,” she said.

“It’s heart wrecking. But maybe this is the best first step for the next time I’ll have to bring her to school.” He sighed and picked up his bag, forcing a confident smile for her too. “I’ll call you this evening after I’m set up.”

“Have a good trip, honey. We’ll be waiting for you no matter what.”

Jim pretended not to see the way her eyes meant those words. He was coming back. With Spock. Alive and recovering. He could feel him. He was sure.

  
The Enterprise was everything he’d imagined and more. His whole body itched with the need to explore, to walk every corridor and brush his fingers over every surface, to press every button and discover every nook. 

But he couldn’t. Because Bones sucked. 

“If I see you,” he threatened, “move _an inch_ from this bed for something that isn’t physical therapy or pee or poo, I’m going to tie you to it.”

“How did you graduate from Medschool with these bedside manners?”

“One inch,” Bones growled, his eyes flashing, “that’s your leeway for the whole trip.”

“One inch,” Jim said, “got it.”

“I’m not kidding, Jim!”

“I know you’re not! I’m serious! I won’t move! Do you think I want to hurt myself and be stuck in here for any longer than I have to?”

“You should be grateful you’re here, you little ingrate! This is the best MedBay of this quadrant.”

“Oh Bonesy, are you fangirling over the Enterprise? Don’t worry, I’m doing it too. Just, I’m doing it on the inside, like a professional adult.”

“This trip is going to be a nightmare,” Bones muttered, raising a finger in Jim’s face. “One. Inch.”

“One inch, got it! Can I have a pudding cup?”

“No!”

The only flaw in the ship’s design was the corridor between MedBay and the Recovery Gym. More specifically, the fact that it crossed with a Jefferies Tube that lead directly to one of the observation rooms. 

So. How much was one inch anyway? Did Bones expect him to walk around with a twentieth century ruler? 

Jim had to walk the corridor from the gym to MedBay. But. Nobody had said he should walk in the middle. So _technically_ , if he were to walk plastered against the wall, entering the Jefferies Tube wouldn’t be moving away that much further than an inch. And who knew how much an inch was, anyway? 

So technically, if he were to, say, fall inside said Jefferies Tube, he’d find himself on a whole new different path. And he couldn’t go back to the corridor, right, because Bones had said he shouldn’t move one inch away from his bed or from his path. So he should just keep going and take the long way back to MedBay. He was only following orders!

And who the hell had put it there? It was like the Enterprise was begging him to explore. And Bones hadn’t been foreseeing enough to assign him a nurse to accompany him to and from his sessions. It was like everyone was begging him to explore. There, two crew-members walking the corridor and not even sparing him a second glance. Seriously, who did everyone think he was? A mature adult? A responsible patient?

So really. It was more of a duty than a temptation. What did they expect him to do? Not go? Stray from his new accidental path and break the one inch rule? He was doing it for Bones and Chris. So, like, next time he was stuck in MedBay, they would assign him a guard and escaping would be an actual challenge, for a change.

Honestly, this was so easy it was an invitation. Hacking the door to Observation Room 5 didn’t even take him all of his ten fingers. When he got assigned there, he’d fix it. This security system wasn’t worthy of such a pretty gem of a ship.

The room wasn’t empty, but nobody paid him any mind. He walked to the screen slowly, trying to settle his breathing after the climb up the ladder.

He knew it wasn’t real. They were at warp, so the sensors registered alternate sections and projected them slowly enough for human eyes to distinguish stars and galaxies. So technically, this was just a big fancy holo, one he could get on Terra. But hell if it didn’t take his breath away. More than the ladder. 

He sat down on the chair that looked most comfortable and smiled gratefully at the young Yeoman who told him that it actually reclined back. So Jim pushed the button, under the man’s amused gaze, and fixed his eyes on the stars. And then he let his mind free and wandering, following a tether that became stronger and thicker every day, pulling him in, tensing and tensing, bringing him home.

 _Can you see this?_

Spock was conscious enough to use single words sometimes. Like yes, no, more, love. He mentioned the sun a lot, but had never managed to explain why, nothing beyond a mush of sensations pushing his memory of Jim’s features to him. That would be the first thing he’d ask when they were together again, like they belonged. Why the sun.

 _This time_ , Spock answered in sensation. He did it most of the time. Sometimes it was slower, as if he was deep into slumber, and sometimes it was as quick and intense as lightning. Now, confusion seeped between Jim’s thoughts. It was difficult to grasp, initially, if he wasn’t expecting it. Difficult to distinguish from his own thoughts. But it had a quality to it. As if it was made of solid material, while Jim’s thoughts were made of smoke and slipped when he tried to focus on them too hard on purpose.

 _The stars_ , Jim echoed at him, and tried to follow the words with the details he could print in his retina. A single, round galaxy. A green nebula. A cluster of stars rotating into a new beginning, or a new end.

Then Jim felt it, and smiled wider. Spock’s conscience enveloping him, warm and soothing, making reality fade away just slightly, making his senses feel keener but milder at the same time, putting any turmoils to rest. Along came a general sense of yes, of able, of content.

 _I know, this is nice_. 

_Indeed_. 

Jim chuckled, surprised and delighted, ignoring the yeoman who shot him s strange look and a confused smile. He must make quite the sight, in his hospital clothes and two IV ports on his arms, lying on a plush chair and chuckling at the stars. The yeoman probably assumed he was high on painkillers, because he left him alone.

Spock, if possible, enveloped him further, basking in Jim’s amusement. Jim let him, happy to float further away from the present and into his embrace,

 _I ran three kilometres today. Slow as a sloth, but still. The predictions say I’ll be good as new in less than a month_.

Relief, satisfaction, pride. Jim smiled again. He sent back as much comfort as he could while Spock was still this conscious, then went back to sending general impressions of the stars, the galaxies, the nebulas.

Spock sent back emotions, words and questions.

Like pointy years, long hair, flashes of blue eyes, inquiry, rush, and worry. Spock asked of Jasmine often, as if he forgot that she was fine. That he’d saved her and sent her home to Jim, paying with his life. So Jim replayed the scenes. Jasmine, at the hospital playing chess with him. Jasmine, at the gym, sitting next to Amanda as they watched Jim walk on the treadmill. Finding her deep in a meditation session with Sarek after coming back from a scan. Watching her sit on the windowsill and draw the birds perched on the trees outside.

He went on until he could feel Spock relaxing around him. Then he continued, showing him what he knew always made his thoughts sparkle bright in happiness and wonder. 

Jasmine, four years old, insisting they take a toad across a stream because he’d missed he migration with his other friends and she didn’t want him to be alone for the winter.

Jasmine, five years old, driving with him on his hoverbike in the desert, laughing and screaming in joy.

Jasmine, Jim and Chris in London; Jasmine twirling her blue umbrella in the rain, chasing the squirrels in the parks, drinking English tea and saying it was really really bad, offending more than one tea house manager because she felt it was imperative to inform them, so they could improve alien customer service. 

Then Jasmine, Spock and Jim in their kitchen, chatting about quantum mechanics as Jasmine cleared the table, Jim washed the dishes and Spock dried them. 

And, slowly, Spock started sending back memories too. Impressions. Jasmine’s lips twitching when she tried not to smile at Jim’s jokes. The sun filling the living room in his apartment as Jim cooked and Spock watched. The colour of Jim’s eyes when he woke up. The feel of their mouths together, of their fingers brushing. The memories from the night when-

“Hi, Jim,” Bones said sweetly, interrupting what had been about to become a very satisfying exchange of memories, “remember me?” 

Oh shit.

  
So yeah. Bones had him more or less tied to the bed. Not in the fun way. He had a bracelet on his ankle which transmitted directly to Chris’s PADD and Bones’s everything. It blared red whenever he even turned in the direction of something that wasn’t the Recovery Gym or MedBay. 

He was halfway through an Individual Rights Violation Complaint when Chris entered MedBay. 

“I had your PADD blocked after you sent a personal complaint against Doctor McCoy,” he said, walking up to Jim’s bed and sitting down with a wink, “so don’t bother.”

“Seriously?! That’s why I couldn’t access Starfleet’s database?”

“You can read and watch holos for fun, but no work. It should be a nice break from the single dad life.”

“I’m not a single dad, remember? I have a grandpa for my daughter, he helped a lot.”

“Careful,” Chris warned, “call me grandpa again and I’ll tell McCoy to go ahead with the dietary restrictions on you.”

“Worse than this? Whenever I ask something, the nurse brings it in a salad. Have you ever tried a hamburger inside a salad? Exactly. That face pretty much sums it up. The replicated Vulcan food is shit, by the way. Now I know why Spock was happy to get back on campus to teach, I’d do it too if I had to eat that stuff for five years.”

“Spock, contrary to you, was content to consume the nutrients he needed for a balanced diet and didn’t whine about the taste like a three year old.”

“Well, have you tried it? Plomeek soup tastes like carton and smelly socks. I wanted to cry.”

“And you could do better?”

Jim scoffed. “I could program a plomeek soup so good that the VSA would run out of interns because all Vulcan students would join Starfleet just to eat it.”

“Too bad you’re blocked from the system for writing unnecessary complaints, huh?”

“Yeah, and, like, I know no higher ups here that could unblock me with the swipe of a finger.”

“I won’t lift the block until you apologise to your friend. This past month has been hard on him, Jim, come on. He’s worried about you and you write him up?”

“It wasn’t even a real complaint! I mean, it was, but I hacked the Human Resources database and erased it from their system. So it’s only on your PADD. And his. I just wanted to annoy you both. And, in my defence, I am getting pretty bored here.”

“You did _what_?”

“Oh, come on, as if this is news. I could hack out of the block right now if I wanted to! I’m being good, I swear. I eat all my burger salads and my carton-socks soups. I don’t complain when Bones stabs me with needles. I just want to explore a little. How is exploring different than walking on the treadmill in the gym?”

“If you collapse in the gym there’s medical assistance ready.”

“We have emergency beam transport, if I collapse randomly! Please? I’ll take anything. Even someone babysitting me. Please? Please, Chris? Spock is bored of always seeing only MedBay. It’s for both of us! Give us something to do! Let me go to an observation room and work on the Vulcan food! Please?”

Jim had known it would happen, so he pretended he didn’t see Chris frowning at the mention of Spock. He wasn’t sure if Chris believed him, honestly. He was pretty sure he had allowed the trip just for the hope of having a body to bring home. And he got progressively more worried as they neared, staring at him for long seconds, thoughtful, as if waiting for something bad to happen to him.

It was fair, he guessed. If Jasmine had suddenly crumbled to the ground and started dying for something he could do nothing about, he didn’t know if he’d ever let her out of the house again. He’d certainly never forget the trauma. Jim could see the ghosts of how bad he’d really been in Chris’s pensive eyes, or in the way he was sometimes caught off guard when Jim sat up and walked on his own. 

But he hadn’t said anything. Whatever was going on inside Chris’s mind, he wasn’t letting it affect Jim, he wasn’t letting it weight on him. Which was both frustrating and incredibly heart-warming. Jim just hoped he had someone to talk to. Anyone, really. Losing Una had taken its toll on him, and he’d been closed off ever since.

“Have you been talking with the psychologist, Jim?”

Jim sighed, but complied. It made Chris feel better if he just played the game. “Yes. You know I have.”

“Okay. Thank you. I just wanted to make sure.”

“He’s alive, Chris,” Jim tried again, “I feel him, the closer we get the stronger I feel him. I’m not saying he’s okay. I’m saying he’s alive. That we have hope.”

“I hope you’re right, kid. I really do.”

  
They found him on day thirteen. 

It was night, but Jim wasn’t really sleeping. For two days, he’d felt Spock closer than ever before, able to send back more than one word at once, as vivid as if he was standing just next to him. He was lying on his bed, MedBay filtered and cottoned around him, as he exchanged memories of his childhood with Spock, focusing on the good ones, the ones with Chris and sometimes even Sam. 

And then he felt it, sudden and strong as a tensed rope, and jumped up. 

“Stop the ship!!” he screamed, scrambling off the bed and running to the COMM unit, ignoring the nurse as she ran after him. “MedBay to Bridge, this is Cadet Kirk, stop the ship now!! Kirk to Pike, Chris, we need to stop! We passed him, Chris!!”

He heard voices of protest, around him, in the COMM from the Bridge; he felt hands pulling him back, but he grabbed the console as hard as he could and waited for the only voice he cared for.

“Jim, it’s three am, what the hell?”

“We passed him! We passed him, I feel him in the opposite direction! We got so close and now we’re moving away, stop the ship!”

“Jim, are you sure? We’re at warp five, this is-“

“ _Stop the ship!_ ”

“Fine! Fine! Helm, drop to impulse and reverse course. Jim, get on the Bridge, I’m coming up too.”

“He’s bleeding, Sir! He won’t let us reattach his IV!”

“Jim, for the stars’ sake, let the nurses fix you up! We’ve had enough injuries for a while, don’t you think?”

Jim had barely noticed he’d ripped it off in his haste. He was bleeding, and quite a lot, so he just held out his arm and let them pull him back to a station. 

“Just bandage it,” he said.

“You’re only halfway through your drip for the night, so you’re keeping the bag and the IV and if you try and utter a single word of protest, I’ll fill you up with so many monitoring machines that you won’t be able to move, and you’ll be stepping on the bridge carried bridal-style by a security officer.”

He spent three seconds in speechlessness, too surprised by her bark and commanding tone to utter any protest. Unperturbed, she went to work to close his wound and find a new vein. “How is it that you medical lot have so bad bedside manners, Nurse Chapel?” he eventually asked, strongly reconsidering his idea of her.

“Our manners are as good as our patients’ behaviour.”

“This is my best behaviour!”

The ship dropped out of warp with a jump, but she kept working with the same precision, unbothered, her hand not faltering on his skin as she punctured to insert a new IV. “Then I really hope I never have to see you again.”

“That is… mean.”

“You deserve it, because you’re an idiot.”

“I like you.”

“I’m flattered,” she said, sounding anything but. “You’re good to go. The bag comes with you. I have access to the cameras on the bridge from Doctor McCoy’s office, if I see you step on it without it, I’ll come up and stun you.”

“… Got it. Thank you. Sorry for disrupting your shift.”

Halfway to the bridge, Jim was glad that she had insisted on bringing the IV with him, especially on an old-fashioned pole, because he needed something to lean on. 

When he arrived, Pike sat up from the chair and grabbed his arm. “You look like shit, Jim. Are you feeling okay?”

“Just tired,” Jim murmured, “haven’t been getting a lot of sleep. We need to go back the way we came.”

“Sit down,” Chris said, leading him directly to The Chair, and Jim cursed his whitened vision because he was sitting on The Chair for the first time and he couldn’t even enjoy it. “Water?”

“I’m fine,” he said, “we need to move back. Exactly the same vector, just opposite.”

“How much time passed between Cadet Kirk’s COMM and the moment we reached full stop, Mr Chekov?”

“Four minutes, Sir.”

“Why didn’t you ask for the emergency break?” Jim protested.

“Because it’s for emergencies, Jim! How much help can we be to Spock if we get stranded?”

“Fine,” Jim wheezed, slowly regaining his peripheral sight, “fine.”

“Plot a course to where we were when he COMM-ed and move at warp four. Shields up, yellow alert. All senior medical officers to MedBay.”

“Yes, Sir! Precision range: a hundred and seventeen kilometres.”

“Punch it.”

The stars tensed and flew past as the ship moved back, the bond with Spock loosening every second they moved towards it, letting Jim breathe better. “Do you want your chair back?”

“Not until you stop looking like death ran you over.”

“I feel fine.”

“You really don’t look fine. Now, are you sure we passed him? Navigation, was there anything on our scanners there?”

“Not that I can see, Sir.”

“I’m sure, Chris.”

“Fine. ETA?”

“Three minutes, Sir.”

“This is comfy,” Jim commented, wiggling on the chair and smiling at Chris’s exasperated sigh.

“Don’t get used to it.”

Every second of waiting was agony. Jim could feel him, just out of reach, constantly out of reach but there, enough to grab on something but not enough to grasp it, teasing him and calling him. Spock was silent, like he sometimes got. Jim didn’t know if he received what Jim sent his way in those minutes, but he sent it anyway. To anchor him. Because this was it. This was his chance to get him, and he’d do anything to keep Spock with him until he was sure he was safe. So he sent them. 

Impressions. Moments of his day. The strange taste of a replicated strawberry from his breakfast. The flavour of his new mouthwash. The feeling of sitting on the chair for the first time. The security of having Chris next to him. The fact that they were there, close, and coming to get him. That he didn’t have to be alone anymore. The desperate plea to hold on, to keep pulling, to wait just a few more minutes. To not give up.

“We’re here,” Navigation said, and they were out of warp and… surrounded by nothing. No ships, no asteroids, no planets, no starbases.

“What’s out there?”

“Nothing between twelve and two, Sir.”

“Nothing between six and eight, Sir.”

“Nothing between-“

“He’s there,” Jim said, pointing forward and upwards and slightly left. 

“Any idea of coordinates, Jim?” Chris asked, though he sounded tense. But there was no reason, right? Spock was there. He could feel it. There must be something, a shielded ship. The shuttle he’d disappeared into had been shielded from sensors, right? There might be a shielded ship. There must be. Spock was silent like he’d been many times before, but he was there. He must be there.

“Maybe,” Jim murmured. “Can I have the starmap?”

“Yeah, kid.” Chris punched a few key strokes on the chair and a starmap holo appeared in front of him, the Enterprise a glowing blue dot in its emptiness.

“Here,” Jim said, circling the point, “more or less. I can’t feel him very well, it’s weird. The closer we get the more difficult, and he’s being silent.”

“…Okay. Okay, Jim, that’s close enough to a EVA exploration area. Helm, got the point?”

“Aye, Sir.”

“Full impulse, get close.”

“He’s there, Chris.”

“I really hope so, Jim.”

The Enterprise moved forward sleek and silent, barely any vibrations reaching Jim’s body. It was a piece of art. Jim wondered how Spock could have stepped foot off it for so long, doing something as limited as a research professor, having to work on data he couldn’t collect personally. He’d seen how frustrated he got when a report was slippery, or the analysis he requested came with erroneous statistics. There was this little line between his eyebrows, it only appeared when he was ready to write a perfectly logical strongly worded letter to the poor soul who’d been assigned to collect data for him. No rest for the interns, really none.

Jim watched the scanner moving on the front screen, travelling from meter to meter, looking, analysing in blue and turning red, red for nothing, then moving on. It didn’t matter. He was there. What else could there be except Spock? Nothing else could call him telepathically. It was Spock. He was there.

“We’re in position at the centre of the highlighted area, Sir.”

“Scanners?”

“Nothing yet.”

“Jim?”

“I don’t know,” Jim said, closing his eyes, trying to focus. Spock was slipping from his grasp just like his own thoughts, like he’d never done before. Please, he wished, as strongly as he could, projecting it everywhere in his mind, _please, one more strain_. _Just one_. 

Nothing answered back. “Kid?”

“I’m not sure. He’s here, I can feel him all around us, but I can’t get a precise sense of direction. It’s… weird. It’s never been like this. I need to go out and-”

“Absolutely not.”

“Chris, we don’t know where he is, I’m the only one who has a telepathic GPS, I need to get out there and look for him! I did all my mandatory EVA training hours, I’m set to-“

“If you think that I will let you step one foot off this ship, Jim, you’re delusional. Now lay back, sitting straight makes you look like you’re going to faint.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not. Now shut up unless your telepathic GPS reactivates. Ensign Lymez, do you fancy a space walk?”

“Of course, Sir.”

“Good, get ready.”

“Chris, I get that I look like shit, but if I can’t-“

“I found something!!” Jim snapped his mouth shut and turned his eyes to the Communication Officer, his fingers tapping on the console as his other hand pressed against his ear. “It’s an Orion SOS code. It’s repetitive, out of subspace range and very difficult to triangulate, but it seems to be coming from an escape pod.”

“Can you lock on to it, Lieutenant?”

“I think I can try but it doesn’t seem likely, it’s like it’s coming from everywhere and-“

“Can I try?” Jim asked, looking at Chris’s face. Imploring. He could do it, he knew he could. Triangulate a non subspace signal? Child play. 

“Lieutenant, send the data to my chair.”

“I can stand,” Jim said, putting his hands on the armrests and starting to push up, only to be forced down by Chris’s hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t you dare. If you faint, who’s going to find him, Jim?”

“Fine! Fine. Just give me the PADD.” 

Jim looked at the data and forced the bridge to disappeared. Nothing mattered but those numbers, Spock’s silence, and Chris’s hand still on his shoulder. He looked more. A repetitive pattern for sure. Simple, intergalactic, a messy message for help. But Orions weren’t part of the Federation. They didn’t want to be rescued by Federation vessels. They said they’d rather die. And this wasn’t a real Orion message.

No. This was too familiar to be Orion. This wasn’t a normal SOS. This had been purposefully altered. The numbers were flickering and translating live, but even before they turned from the harsh rectangular of Orion script to the smooth lines of Standard numbers, they had a pattern that was within the decimal system. 

This was written by someone from the Federation. Someone smart enough to hide the message away from subspace, where he knew that Orions or Klingons would pick it up. 

This was Spock. Jim knew it with a certainty that went beyond anything else in his life. He recognised it, Spock’s elegant way of writing code. Jim hacked it every day when he decided to enter Spock’s study without his key-the key that he kept losing and that kept magically appearing in his pockets when Spock was around. He hacked it every day and Spock upgraded it after his every success, playing a game of numbers and strategy without ever mentioning it beyond a smile or a raised eyebrow.

“He wrote this,” Jim said, and didn’t realise he’d barely murmured the words when Chris asked him to repeat. “Spock,” Jim said, breathless, “this is his coding. He programmed the escape pod to signal a message only detectable by the Federation and insignificant for the Orions and Klingons.”

“That’s great, kid, but can you pinpoint it?”

“…yeah,” Jim murmured, “yeah. I think so.” The message was standard, but messy. Confused. Seemingly random, like a kid that pressed the same buttons repeatedly without knowing what they were for, numbers and delete sequences fighting against each other. Why would Spock, as weak as he was, waste energy to write something so precisely confused without the possibility to use it to locate him? There was a trick in there. Something that Jim could use. Anything else would be illogical. 

He scanned the numbers again, then looked up. 

Then down. 

Then up.

 _It seems to be coming from everywhere_. 

“It’s a jam.”

“Jim?”

“It’s not a communication, it’s a jam!” He could barely breathe, adrenaline constricting his chest, making him dizzy with relief, with the last pieces of the puzzle fitting in, the proof of Spock’s presence and survival alive and solid in his hands. “Spock sent the SOS as a subspace signal, but he needed the people he didn’t want to be found by to pass by and take it for a minor disturbance! This isn’t his SOS, it’s a jam!! He sent the location SOS first, then added a second layer of opposite polarisation, also as a subspace signal, that jammed the first and made subspace detection impossible. We’re hearing the disturbance noise reverberating from subspace. It’s so strong it turned into radio-similar waves. Too slow to reach the planets around here in less than a hundred years, too messy to be taken for anything but a bug from ships passing by, but rhythmic enough to be analysed and recorded by any Federation vessel. It’s… genius.” 

“So how do we un-jam it?”

“Easy,” Jim said, “we send the opposite message back at him and reinforce the first. We need to boost on this wave-length, everywhere in this area. It doesn’t need to be stronger or reach further. The minimal change will give us a peek of the subspace SOS.”

“Can you send it to Science and Communications, Jim?”

“Already done.”

“I have it, Sir. Emitting on the Cadet’s frequency right now.” 

“All detection sensors focused on opposite subspace polarisation, Captain.”

And they waited. The whole bridge of the USS Enterprise collectively holding their breaths, gripping their stations, fingers hovering on their instruments, waiting. Waiting more. 

Jim stared at his PADD and up at the stars, his hands white and clammy with cold sweat. He wasn’t wrong. Spock was there. As long as they were together, there weren’t no win scenarios. Spock was there. Nothing else could be. He’d travelled the galaxy and he’d fought tooth and nail and he’d lay awake at night cradling the sparkle of his remains and _Jim was not losing this_. Jim was not losing him. 

The universe had taken so much from him. It wouldn’t take Spock. 

Vulcans always kept count of time passing. Humans didn’t. 

Jim did. Every second was blaring at the forefront of his mind, getting bigger and louder at every instant the bridge stayed silent, every instant the COMMs didn’t chime. Every instant Spock didn’t respond to his calls, didn’t send back anything but void and void, his side of the bond getting colder and slimmer, his presence dissipating around them.

One minute. 

Spock was there. He wasn’t answering but he was there. This was his signal and Jim-

Jim hadn’t gotten there too late. He hadn’t, he hadn’t, he couldn’t have, he hadn’t. Spock was just asleep again. He was just-

Chris shifted on his feet and Jim felt his eyes on himself, but gazed straight ahead, knowing what Chris wanted. _You need to be ready for the chance that Spock won’t be there_. 

“Jim,” Chris started. 

Jim looked down, watched his tears fall on Chris’s PADD without feeling them.

Why wasn’t Spock answering? He’d been answering for days.

He wasn’t late. _He wasn’t late_. Spock did not get to hold on and just give up when Jim was so close, he didn’t have the right, Jim wouldn’t let him, _couldn’t let him_ , he just-

He was screaming with all his might, pushing so hard through the bond that his vision was blurring again, and Chris’s words sounded far and far away. But he couldn’t stop. Spock had been there just minutes before and he did not get to give up now, he didn’t. Jim wouldn’t let him, he wouldn’t let him, and when Jim got him back he’d punch him so hard, repeatedly, one for ever second of silence where Jim had been forced to fight alone.

“Kid, listen…” Chris’s hand was a crushing weight on his shoulder. “This isn’t-“

A chime.

 _A chime_. 

Every eye on the bridge turned to Science, everybody holding their breaths. The Lieutenant was bent on his console, frowning, his hands moving quickly, too quickly to see.

He stopped suddenly, his eyes wide, and- “I got him!! I got him! Orion escape pod, one life sign, compatible with weakened Vulcan parameters, transmitting coordinates to the Transporter room now!”

“Connecting you to he Transporter room, Sir,” Communications said, before Chris had to ask. 

“Transporter, this is Captain Pike, energise beam up of Lieutenant Commander Spock immediately, directly to ICU section of MedBay. Ensign, notice MedBay immediately, I want Dr. McCoy and Dr. M’Benga to be ready.”

“ _Transporter has locked on, Sir. Energising now… We have him, Sir! Lieutenant Commander Spock in on board!_ ”

Jim didn’t... Jim didn’t. He didn’t even notice he wasn’t breathing right, didn’t notice the world had tilted, until Chris’s hands pushed harder and he found himself with his face between his knees, wheezing.

“You did it, Jim,” Chris whispered, “you did it, he’s home.”

Jim didn’t remember the walk down to sickbay. He didn’t remember Chris holding him up, but when he stepped through, his arm and shoulders were tingling with returning blood flow and the familiar dull pain of forming bruises. 

And Spock. 

Spock was there. Spock was there, pale and thin and unconscious and covered in machines and gaunt and ill and behind the glass of the operating theatre but there. Alive. His chest so weak and so emaciated, but moving. Up, down, pause. Up, down, pause. Jim didn’t realised he’d synced his own breaths with him until the lack of oxygen made him dizzy. 

“Stay back,” Bones ordered them, and Chris grabbed Jim’s sleeve and pulled him back half a metre, away from the storm of nurses and doctors working and walking and running inside and outside of the sterile shower to reach Spock’s bed, and Jim just let him because Spock was there. He was far and he couldn’t touch him and he couldn’t feel him but he was there. Alive. Breathing. 

“Thank you, Jim,” Chris was whispering, hugging him into his side, holding him up. “Thank you, kid.”

Spock was alive. Jim had been right. He had to go and write to Jazz, sitting at his desk and typing as quickly as he could, wishing he would be able to see their faces when they read the message. But- Spock was there. _There_. And when Bones finished hooking him up to anything and everything that would bring his eyes to open again, Jim would be allowed to lie down with him. He knew he would. 

He could leave and come back when Spock would look less dead, save himself from part of the trauma, but he couldn’t. He had no intention of moving. Chris had no intention of making him. They stood there, watching the panic and rush of MedBay slow down with each time Spock’s breaths deepened, watched Bones step back with his gloves green from Spock’s blood and nod at M’Benga to start and stitch up. Watched Bones’s eyes slowly losing the frenetic panic of a medical emergency as he stepped back further and circled the bed to check on everyone, on the doctors bandaging and the nurses tending to his IVs, then stopped in front of Jim, turning around and locking their gazes, the hours of surgery weighting him down as he nodded twice and let his lips curve in a half smile. 

Spock was okay. _Spock was okay_.

Jim sighed and laughed and leaned back against Chris, letting him take his weight, and thought, as hard as he could through the fog that was Spock’s mind, you’re home.

And Spock, after hours of silence, answered back. Exhaustion. Fear. Cold. 

_I’m here_ , Jim sent back to him, trying to push all of his comfort into the open bond, trying to envelop Spock as Spock always enveloped him. 

“He’s cold,” he whispered, then leant forward and hit the intercom and repeated, “he’s cold, Bones.” He was met with three pairs of confused eyes, and he blinked back, completely serious. “He told me. He’s cold, get the room temperature higher if you really can’t cover him.”

Bones nodded, frowning to himself, and said something to a nurse who stopped wiping Spock’s chest clean of blood and grime and went to set the thermostat up.

“Higher,” Jim asked, feeling Spock more comfortable but his fingers still rigid with coldness. The nurse complied without waiting for Bones to confirm.

Gratefulness, tiredness, sleep. Jim enveloped him further and tried to lull him to the rest he’d been denied for days, using his mind to shield Spock’s from the pain of the tubes, of the bones, of his hands and his mind. Spock let him. He let him, and entwined them like he had done that time in bed, that day before everything had gone to hell. Jim sighed, letting himself sink into the reality that Spock was there. Spock was fine.

His vital signs improved slowly, but improved. Jim had studied them on the way, because he’d been bored and because he hadn’t wanted to spend another minute of his life without knowing how to check for Spock’s pulse, how to tell if he was in danger, how to tell if he was ill. He’d hacked the VSA system two times, only half his focus on the task, his other half telling Spock how ridiculous they were in their secrecy if they kept a system security this shitty. The third time, a username and password with his own name had appeared on the log in page before he could start breaking in, and he’d discovered he’d been granted Spock’s same level of disclosure, and that Jasmine had already used his password to look for information on a very weird amphibious that lived in one single underground river of a very specific region and couldn’t be found anywhere else on Vulcan.

Jim hoped Spock would be awake enough to listen to her rant about it when they got back. He always got this look, when Jazz had something to say she was very excited about, and decided Spock was the perfect recipient. It was as if his whole face softened, his head tilted slightly sideways, his eyes so alight that they sparkled. And Jazz, Jazz drank it up like water in the desert, preening under the attention, turning to Jim with wide, happy eyes as if saying, Spock is really listening, can you believe he is always really listening, dad?

Jim should write them. But Spock was there, alive, and Jim could see his breaths moving his chest, his heartbeat moving the red lines of his EKG, his brain waves on the monitor. Spock was okay. Jim just needed a few more minutes to make sure. He needed to touch him, take his hands, and feel his warmer skin, feel the air from his breaths caress his cheeks as they lay together, like they had so many times before.

Spock was okay.

And then he wasn’t.

Jim saw it. He saw it before the medics. He saw it before the alarms sounded. A spike, two, an electrical anomaly of his heart that had a name, and it vaguely echoed in his brain, ungraspable, unreal. Pre ventricular fibrillation. It was different in Vulcans than humans. He recognised it, the shape, the curve and the spike. And he froze. He saw everything happen slowly, as if he was having trouble computing. Because this. This wasn’t happening.

Jim was getting it wrong. He’d studied wrong, or he was seeing things that weren’t there because he was exhausted and tired and he just had very specific knowledge of just a few medical things, and that didn’t mean that he could get it right. He was remembering it wrong. 

He was wrong. 

And then he wasn’t.

The alarm of a blue code was jarring, as it was meant to be. It had to get the attention of any medic in the vicinity and it wouldn’t stop until the computer counted at least three doctors and three nurses working on the bed. Jim could feel it ringing in his skull, filling the emptiness. 

Emptiness. 

Void.

 _No_.

Reality crashed back like a shockwave. Jim was shaking, Chris was screaming at him, and the whole sickbay was around them, passing objects through the sterilising field, Bones barking orders and taking turns at pushing at Spock’s chest and electrifying him, the whole team coordinated as one, jumping back to avoid the shock and diving back in to inject and pull and push and move.

In his head, nothing. Jim strained, knew that Vulcans had five minutes of lack of oxygen before brain damage, not three like humans did, and so he strained, he tried, he put everything of himself and forced it through the restricting, cooling bond, now rigid and fragile, barely there. He barrelled through it, keeping it up by sheer will, his vision red and the world disappearing, and he pushed and pushed and pushed until he felt it, small and frail and scattering but there, Spock’s mind trying to reach his own, trying to hold on. 

Jim grasped it, clenched it, and pulled as hard as he could, feeling himself hit the ground but not caring, pulling more and more, until the bond was screaming and his mind was screaming and Spock was screaming but _there_ , there with him, slippery and small and pulling against Jim’s pull as he was dragged back into nothingness, and Jim knew with a sudden clarity what he had to do. 

It hurt, it hurt so much, it tore his heart, but Jim had been counting and he knew how much time he had and he knew he must, he must because it was the only hope, and so- So he let go. Spock flew away from him like a pulled elastic suddenly released, and Jim lost him, and forced himself to go back to the noise, the smells, the pain and the harsh lights, and met Chris’s eyes with a gasp.

“I need to go in,” Jim wheezed, and sat up before Chris could do more than frown and gape, and crawled towards the sterilising field ad hoped hacking wouldn’t take more than ten seconds.

“Jim! You can barely stand, what the hell-“

Chris pulled him back and Jim screamed his protests but Chris didn’t stop, he pulled until they were clear of the corridor of running nurses and doctors, and then he shook him violently.

“Jim!! Spock’s best hope is to be treated right and if you take a medic’s place to go in, you might take the place of the person they need to save his-“

“I can bring him back,” Jim panted, meeting Chris’s eyes, “I’m the only one that can, I need to go in there and bring him back. Chris- Chris! You trusted me before, and we found him. I need you to trust me again.”

Chris’s eyes were wild, and Jim could see the denial in them, but it didn’t reach his lips. Chris pulled him up, making Jim’s vision swim, and dragged him to the sterilising field, opening his door with his override and pushing him in. The steam and the sonic shower started blowing, and Jim raised his arms and turned and ignored the nausea and his blackened vision and a nurse’s voice on the intercom asking him what the hell did he think he was doing, and when he heard the ping and the swish of the doors he walked almost blindly to Spock’s side, fell to his knees and reached between medics and under Bones’s shouts for Spock’s hand, bringing it up and-

Spock’s hands were wrong. So deeply, irredeemably _wrong_. They were warm with thick blood and utterly destroyed, he couldn’t feel an inch of skin, only blood and wet and wounds and the smooth, tense surface of burned skin. 

Spock couldn’t meld like this. Jim was counting and he barely had two minutes left and he didn’t think he had it in him to stand up again, not with his head so empty, so void, so painful, and Spock couldn’t meld. 

“Jim!?” Bones was pulling him up, and the blood made Jim’s skin sickeningly sleek and he lost Spock’s hand, it slipped away like water. “Jim, you can’t be in here, what the hell-“

“We need to meld,” Jim said, to whom he didn’t know, he couldn’t focus on anything but the deep green of Spock’s blood on his hands, couldn’t feel anything but the utter, impending failure, the absence of anything at the back of his mind, where the emptiness was already pounding with pain. “I need to meld to bring him back or he’ll stay dead.”

Bones kept silent for five seconds, the resuscitation process around them a glooming clock, taking five seconds, five precious seconds, away from Spock’s brain.

“Your bond with him,” he said then, “Jim, your bond with him started with contact, not a meld, you can do this.” He was being moved, away from Spock’s hand, away from the bed, and Jim whined and cried but Bones tugged him harder and harder, not caring if he was hurting him, and after twelve more seconds, Bones pushed his hands down and on a cold, damp face. Spock’s face, on the sides, so much colder than Jim remembered, and now marred with blood. “Try anyway, Jim, come on. Mr’kas, drag him away when we have to shock, otherwise keep him here. Jim? Jim?! Jim, try again! Try!”

Try.

Jim tightened his hold on Spock’s head, caressed his cheeks, brushed the points Spock had pressed on his own face, so much time before, when they’d melded for the first time.

He lowered his forehead because he couldn’t keep himself up, not even with someone’s arms around him, and let it rest against Spock’s.

Try.

 _You don’t get to give up now. I won’t let you give up on us now_.

Jim pushed. It hurt more than the first time, as if his brain already knew that Jim would push through something that was dying, something dangerous, something that shouldn’t work. Jim pushed and fought and gained space slowly, and pushed harder, putting all of himself in it, losing awareness of the voices, of the noises, of the screams. He pushed past the point where Spock had been before and he pushed through the pain and the coldness and the numbness, ignoring the shivers that nearly dislocated his hands, pressing and grasping hard enough to bruise but holding on, pushing and-there. Spock was there, and Jim clenched himself around him and pulled, pulled with all his might, and pulled again when it became harder, when dragging Spock out of the cold and the void and the numbness felt like pulling a body through frozen water, he pulled and pulled and pulled and-

He was pulled back, and he screamed in protest but whomever held him didn’t let him scramble away, suffered through his nails and his struggles, and Jim held on with his mind as hard as he could but Spock was slipping again, he was-

The shock travelled from Spock’s chest to his nerve endings to his brain to Jim’s brain paralysing him for a moment, and then Jim was pushed back down and his hands met Spock’s face automatically and Spock was _there_ again, he was there, he was grasping onto Jim as much as Jim was grasping onto him, and together they were pulling away and out and into the open, until Jim felt like at least half of himself was back in his own mind and the whole of Spock was back into his, and he held on for dear life, pulling more, surrounding him and cradling him as thoroughly as he could because _you’re not going anywhere_ , Jim promised, _I’m here, you’re not going anywhere_. 

Jim, Spock’s voice, so real and so close and so alive and Jim sobbed in relief, not letting up, and let Spock entwine his own reassurances into Jim’s tight cradle, but not letting up, never, not until he was sure. 

_You’re not going anywhere_ , he repeated, and repeated, until Spock assured him he wasn’t. That he was fighting as much as Jim, that he didn’t have to fight alone anymore, and Jim sobbed and gripped tighter and didn’t even know how much he was trembling, just that Spock was there. Back there, with him, fighting with him, together as they were meant to be.

Spock’s heart stopped two more times.

Jim stayed all through it. He felt him slip away and held on, pulled when Spock grasped, and together they never let either of them slip away. 

Jim had stopped counting. He didn’t know how much time had passed when Bones declared Spock stable. When he tried to pull Jim away and then had to ask for one more person to help and then two, and when Jim’s fingers were pried away despite his cries. 

Jim didn’t know how much time had passed, but he counted every second it took Bones and his staff to take Jim’s body, shaking and barely able to hold his head up, and place it next to Spock, let him cuddle close with one hand over Spock’s heart and the other back on the side of his face where the blood had dried.

Bones spoke to him in hushed whispers, over the monitors and over the steps of the emergency personnel leaving, he spoke slowly and repeated himself more than once and tried shaking Jim a little, but Jim was exhausted, his mind wrapped around Spock’s as securely as he could, and the only external thing he could focus on was the beating of Spock’s heart, regular and strong underneath the electrode shirt, pushing against his hand. 

Jim made sense of the words slowly, not really sure if he was remembering them or imagining what his friend could have said to him. He’s going to be fine, he’d said. I’m sorry, we missed something when I nodded before, it’s fixed now. You can rest, he’s going to be fine. I swear he will, Jim. I’m so sorry.

Jim just held on. It didn’t matter if Bones said Spock would be fine. Jim would stay there. He’d never let him slip away again.

He felt Spock move from his drug-induced coma to a healing one. He felt the shift, felt the change in texture of Spock’s conscience, felt his mind become less grainy, less mushed, more vibrant, more like the one Jim remembered. Graspable. Healthy. He felt as it righted itself and worked on the problems, on Spock’s shields and Spock’s pain. Worked around Jim. Keeping him in, keeping him close. After Jim felt the shields slip into place around him, he let Spock push him gently back into his own mind, enveloping him as Jim was enveloping Spock, and feeling him hold on steadily.

 _Sleep_ , Spock was saying to him. _I am here_.

Jim didn’t want to. He was afraid-no, he was terrified-that letting go would mean feeling Spock slip away again. This time, Jim didn’t know if he could find him.

 _I will not,_ ashaya, Spock said. _Sleep. I will be here_.

Jim didn’t want to. But he did. Spock wasn’t as warm as he remembered, but he was warm enough. His mind wasn’t cold anymore, and it was soothingly entwining him, lulling him to slumber. Spock wasn’t just alive, he was conscious, and he was healing, and he had the energy to push him into sleeping. And Jim was exhausted like he’d never been before. He felt like all his life had been sucked into the cold of Spock’s disappearance, inside the endless vortex that had nearly taken him from Jim.

Sleep, Jim. All is well.

Counting the beats of Spock heart pushing against his palm, Jim fell asleep.

  
The Enterprise searched the area for four days. They didn’t find anything. Jim felt the disappointment in Chris’s voice when he came to tell him they were going back home, but he didn’t have the strength in him to reassure him. He knew what was bothering him. That the kid trading, the slave trading, couldn’t possibly have stopped when they’d taken that Orion ship. That the people who had tortured Spock, destroyed his hands, were roaming free. 

Alas, the Enterprise’s mission wasn’t patrol, nor a hunt. It was a rescue, and they’d succeeded. It was time to go home. 

Spock was moved out of Intensive Care one hour after the Enterprise went to warp, Jim with him. They’d given him a bed of his own, and it had proved only useful for piling his PADDs, the half eaten dishes he was brought, and a cleaning bot that had malfunctioned and the Chief Engineer had given him to pull apart and have fun. Pike had taken one look at it and frowned, saying that Spock wouldn’t approve of using Starfleet property for Jim’s entertainment, but had let him keep it, probably because Jim must look ready to snap.

Jim had said that Spock actually approved, but he knew Chris didn’t believe him. Well, Spock approved. Jim had every intention of turning it into two fighting robots and Spock had suggested a way to separate its circuits so he could optimise the power and have them both functioning at least half the performance of the original.

Apart from using the bathroom, Jim didn’t leave Spock’s bed. Bones should have been ecstatic about it, right? Wrong. He found something to complain about that too, like Jim not doing physical therapy or drinking enough. Still, the nurses stopped bringing Jim’s food in the form of salads and soups, and he was actually allowed a whole burger with fries, as many naps as he wanted, and never got forced into going to PT, so Jim suspected Bones was complaining just to complain, and he was actually being a big softie.

M’Benga had decided to wake Spock on day ten and he’d told Jim with soft words, as if talking to a scared animal. The worst of the damage had been solved in surgery, he’d said, and his malnourishment and cytopenia were being taken care of by the drugs and transfusions. The worst was now in his hands, and the exhaustion. The exhaustion Jim could feel both in Spock and his own bones. He didn’t know if either was mirroring the other. He just knew he felt like he could sleep a thousand years, and at the same time, he never wanted to sleep ever again. 

Spock was fine, M’Benga said. Jim knew, rationally, that Spock was-Spock had told him himself. But he couldn’t shake off the memory of Bones saying the same thing, and Spock dying three times, barely scrapping by, barely cheating death.

And then there were Spock’s hands. The hand subject was something Jim hadn’t touched with Spock. He could feel Spock knew, and he could feel the dulled pain he couldn’t shield out of his mind, but he didn’t want to talk about possibilities before M’Benga gave the final confirmation that Spock couldn’t meld anymore. He’d said there were tests to make, drugs they were trying. Jim didn’t care, he wouldn’t love him any less, but Spock did. And Jim understood. If Spock wanted to ignore it, he would ignore it. The enormity of what Spock might have lost could stay crammed inside their little box of denial as long as he wanted.

On day six, Spock could hold a full conversation with him through the bond. They tried mental chess, but it tired them both too much to continue beyond thirty minutes.

Things were fine. _Fine_ fine. Jim was recovered enough to stand up without feeling like he was going to faint, and Spock was feeling ready to be woken up. He kept insisting, actually, and very often fell asleep mid-rant about how illogical it was to keep him unconscious. Jim would have slapped him back to reason if it hadn’t been exactly what Spock wanted. Because yes, the most logical race in the universe hadn’t found a way to wake up from their super cool healing comas without slapping the shit out of the poor fellow trapped inside of it, M’Benga wasn’t kidding him, he was completely serious and Jim should stop laughing because he was going to choke on his broth.

So things were fine.

Until things caught up with him on day seven, when he got a full blown panic attack while showering, and Bones had to drag his naked ass out of it and into warm clothes, and Jim didn’t stop shivering for six hours, not even Spock’s mind entwined deeply with his managing to calm him down.  
  
Spock had died.

 _Spock had died three times_. 

He’d given up when Jim had been so close. Jim owed him a hundred and fifty seven punches, one for every second where Spock hadn’t fought to survive.

He kept wondering how much it would take them to get the courage to watch the other leave, to do normal stuff. If he imagined Spock in his uniform, leaving the breakfast table early to get to his office before his first lecture; if he imagined having to watch him go, Jim couldn’t breathe.

And Spock? Spock shook physically when Jim left him to go to the bathroom. Jim felt it all in his head, the echo of the raging battle between the instinct and the logic rationale telling Spock that Jim was alive even if Spock didn’t feel him against him, that Jim was conscious and vibrant and trying to soothe him in his mind; that the fear and panic shaking him to his core was illogical, because Jim wasn’t dying anymore, he wasn’t stuck in the ICU anymore, he wasn’t tied to a machine that breathed for him anymore, he was alive.

 _We will be fine_ , Spock said.

_How do you know?_

_Because I love you, as you love me. That is all that matters._

The evening before day ten, the Enterprise got out of warp for supplies in perfect range to allow video calls from Terra.

Jim had spent the afternoon looking at his PADD, his thumb hovering over Jazz’s contact, and he’d ultimately decided he wouldn’t call. He was a mess, Spock was a mess and Jim didn’t want to call her without him next to him, awake and ready to greet her and his parents. So he sent another message, asking about Jazz’s day, and sighed against his guilt.

Then, of course, Jazz called him.

Jim answered, pausing just a few seconds to look at Spock’s face, unchanged since day one, but slightly fuller, slightly more coloured. He looked like he was really sleeping. It would have to be enough.

“DAD!! You answered! You’re here, dad, you’re here!!”

“Hi, pumpkin,” Jim said, smiling despite everything, and smiling wider when Jasmine smiled back.

“I miss you!”

“I miss you too, love.”

“Is Spock there?”

Jim swallowed. “Spock is sleeping,” he said, “he’s very tired. You can talk to him tomorrow, maybe.”

“Can I see him?” Jazz asked, and Jim would have said no, but couldn’t. Not with that much hope colouring his kid’s voice.

“Okay,” he said, “okay, yeah. Wanna call Amanda and Sarek with you, so they can see him too?”

“Yes, that’s logical,” Jazz said, then looked at him carefully, worriedly, and murmured, “please don’t disappear.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Jim promised, taking a stab to his heart, because this was exactly what he’d never wanted to hear. He’d promised himself over and over, that Jazz would never doubt he was coming home. That he wouldn’t be like Winona. He wouldn’t be like George. “I’m with you, always, remember? I’ll always come back to you, pumpkin.” 

Jazz didn’t answer, but let the PADD fall down, and Jim heard her walk away while looking up at the ceiling of Spock’s apartment.

 _I’m a horrible parent_ , he told Spock.

 _You are not_ , Spock replied. _She is simply scared. It will pass. You cannot fault yourself for extenuating circumstances. You are coming back. Your parents never did. That is what matters in her eyes_.

When Amanda and Sarek appeared on the screen with Jazz, Jim managed to force a smile.

“Hi, Jim,” Amanda said politely, “how are you?” Though it was clear that her main interest wasn’t that.

Jim closed his eyes and breathed. “We’re fine,” he said, and turned the PADD so the camera could hold both Spock’s face and his in the frame. “We’re good, actually. Tired but very, very good.”

“Oh, Jim,” Amanda whispered, “I-“

“Can he hear us?” Jazz asked, and Jim shook his head.

“No, sorry, pumpkin. I’m sure he’ll be happy to talk tomorrow, okay? He’ll wake up tomorrow morning,” he added, looking at Sarek and Amanda and watching them understand.

“Thank you for telling us,” Sarek said. “Thank you for everything, Jim.”

“You’re very welcome.”

Jim hadn’t expected to sleep that night. Nobody expected him to, either. The night shift nurse left her personal PADD on Jim’s unused bed, not so casually telling him that she had a whole season of idiotic romance holos on it, and a few hundred silly novels, and that she was very willing to have another movie night with him.

“Thank you, Christine,” Jim murmured, and smiled back when she winked at him while working on the bandages covering Spock’s hands, a new therapeutic cream of Bones’s invention beneath them, trying to awaken the stem cells to repair Spock’s melding nerves.

“Call me if you boys need anything,” she said, and disappeared behind the privacy curtain. 

Spock couldn’t relax either. He’d wanted to be woken up days before, and Jim’s memory of the call with Jasmine had made him further restless. Jim understood. Spock’s last conscious memories all twirled around her, around the panic and the terror of watching her inside a cage, of watching her disappear without being able to confirm if she had really reached safety.

Jim had played memories of her to infinity. They couldn’t be enough, not to patch up the trauma of what they’d lived through. 

_You know what we could do?_ Jim mused, _We could choose a new school_.

Spock acquiesced, probably more to have something to do than anything else. 

Jim lay his head on his chest, skin against skin now that the electrodes had come off, and opened up his personal PADD with the sound beating of Spock’s heart moving his cheek up and down, up and down.

Jazz would have the last say, of course. But Jim could narrow it down. Nothing outside of San Francisco, nothing purely human or purely Vulcan. An in between.

Sarek and Amanda had sent some recommendations. Spock didn’t feel too eager to start with them, but Jim did. Sarek had literally ripped Jazz’s last school to pieces, he didn’t doubt that his choices would be the safest.

They scrolled through holos and videos of children of all planets studying and playing together, running and learning self defence. They went through curriculums and extra activities, trips ad journeys, exchange opportunities, gyms and swimming pools. All through them, Jim never quite managed to stop himself from opening ‘home learning’ and ‘online classes’. He knew he couldn’t do it, wouldn’t do it, wouldn’t rob Jazz of the possibility to make friends and be with people her age just because he was afraid. But he looked. And Spock, ever present around him, tightened his hold on him at every picture Jim relayed him.

 _I will stand by you, for any choice you make_.

Morning came too soon and not soon enough. Bones came in with M’Benga, helped Jim off the bed, and led him to the bathroom to wash his face and teeth as they did their last checks. 

“We’re ready,” Bones said, and Jim found Chris’s eyes where he’d just passed the threshold to MedBay, and didn’t have to speak a word for him to come stand by him, a hand on his shoulder, ready to take his weight.

“Spock’s ready?” M’Benga asked.

Jim knew, but he checked anyway. Spock had been ready for three days, and he’d spent the early hours of the morning in quiet silence, all of his focus onto reinforcing his shields, ready to be awakened. “He’s ready.”

Watching M’Benga slapping Spock didn’t hurt physically, Spock had reinforced his shields too much, but it still almost punched the breath out of him. He did it once, twice, thrice, then checked the monitors for any changes. Nothing. Three harsher slaps were delivered, making Jim flinch, and he opened his mouth to suggest trying something else when a fourth came, and Spock- Spock opened his eyes and gasped.

Jim breathed in with him, almost feeling the life filling Spock’s body again, and watched him through the tears, watched his eyes take in the room, the people, the lights. 

Him. 

“Feet reflex and sensitivity is nominal.”

“Hand reflexes nominal.”

“Abdomen reflex nominal.”

“Knees reflexes nominal.”

“Hi,” Jim whispered, smiling slightly.

Spock relaxed, deflated, and turned his face fully to him. “Hi,” he spoke, his voice rough from disuse, but fluid, fluid enough to talk, thanks to Bones’s hypo. _Alive. Speaking_.

“Jim? For my bloody sake, stop making heart eyes at your boyfriend and make him look to me. Yes, here, thank you, I need to check your pupil response! Now, what’s your name?”

“Spock.”

“Where are we?”

“MedBay, Enterprise.”

“Name the people around here.”

“Doctor McCoy, Doctor M’Benga, Nurse Chapel, Nurse G’dokh, Captain Pike... Jim,” Spock said, looking directly at him, and hearing his name from Spock’s voice after all the wait, all the pain, was- everything. It was everything.

“Name five animals that start with the letter t.”

“Trout,” Spock started, “toucan, tamarin, tapir, tang.”

“Your mother’s surname?”

“Grayson.”

“Jim’s birthday?”

“March 22, 2233.”

“Yeah,” Bones mumbled, “yeah, you’re fine. Jim? You can come say hi.”

Chris led him to the bed. Jim wouldn’t have managed without him. He was so numbed by it, by the sheer incredulity of having Spock there, awake, looking back at him, that he could barely feel his legs. Barely let himself believe.

“Greetings,” Spock said, when Jim was close enough to place his hands on the sides of his face.

“Hi,” Jim whispered, and bent down to peck his lips. “You’re alive,” he said, still not quite sure he wasn’t dreaming, about to be woken up with Spock still missing, or still unconscious, or dying again. Spock was there. _Alive. Raising an eyebrow at him_.

“So are you,” Spock said, and moved one of his bandaged hands to place it on Jim’s neck. “So is Jasmine?”

“Yeah,” Jim said, nodding and laughing a little, because no matter how much Spock’s condition changed, that was always his second question. Jim didn’t think Spock would stop asking until he could see her, feel her alive in his arms. “Thanks only to your utter idiocy.”

“My sacrifice was worthy. It saved both your lives.”

“I’m gonna punch you so hard when you get better,” Jim sobbed, and let Spock guide his face into the curve of his neck, let him carefully caress his back. “So hard. You were an idiot. You scared me to death. You’re grounded for the rest of your life.”

“I am your superior officer,” Spock replied, Jim could swear, almost amused.

“You think I give a shit? See if I give a shit.” He sniffed, and shook, and closed his eyes when Spock caressed him again. “You’re still grounded. You’re not going anywhere I can’t keep an eye on you.”

“Highly illogical,” Spock murmured, and pulled Jim closer.

“You’re gonna get punched so hard. You just wait.”

“I shall await my fate,” Spock said. “Come closer, _ashaya_.”

“Why don’t I help you on the bed, Jim?” Chris asked, and Jim nodded. Bones and Chris helped him up, found blankets and covers, and cocooned them inside of them, skin against skin.

Spock was still colder than normal, but he was getting warmer. And he was soft. Alive. Adjusting his body to fit Jim’s. _Moving. Alive_. 

Jim inhaled his scent, snuggled closer, and inhaled again. Kissed his chest, let his trembles shake him, let the tension out. Spock brushed his lips against his forehead, passed his hands over Jim’s back and sides slowly.

“My compliance means nothing, you’re still getting punched.”

Spock huffed. “As we ascertained.”

Silence fell as the others left the room. Jim let Spock lull him, pet him into relaxation, humming slightly when he shook with small sobs.

“I love you,” Spock said, when Jim slithered his hand over his heart, because he couldn’t fall asleep without it.

“I love you too.”

Seconds passed, and Jim relaxed, though nowhere near sleep. After the panic, the travel, the pain, the fear, having Spock next to him was surreal. He still wasn’t sure he wasn’t dreaming. He still wasn’t sure this wouldn’t be taken away from him too. Any second now.

“All is well, Jim. You can rest,” Spock said, his voice low, warm, dense with sleep. This was... too much. Not enough. Too fragile. It was warm skin and soft blankets and everything he’d dreamed about and it didn’t feel real. It didn’t feel possible. Jim didn’t think he could sleep, not when sleep could take this from his grasp. It was both normal and absurd. So much like the last time they’d been laying in bed together, and so utterly different.

“Sorry. I still can’t believe you’re all right,” Jim whispered.

“And I, you. I am here, Jim,” he added, and Jim nodded, counting his heart beats.

Silence fell again.

It was... This was crazy. Jim had been talking to Spock non stop for weeks, and yet they hadn’t talked, not really, not at all. He’d woken up alone, and yet not really alone, and he’d been told he was crazy, and he’d been told Spock was dead, and he’d been given a fucking therapist, and he’d had to fight tooth and nail to convince him he wasn’t a desperate nut job but he was actually right, and then they’d left and Spock had half spoken half not to him the whole time and then they’d nearly not found him and then they had and then he’d died and. And now he was there, alive, awake, speaking. 

Jim shifted, restless. 

Spock sighed. “You have no intention of sleeping.”

“...No.”

“Very well. As you say, ‘rant away’.”

Jim sat up, surprised. “How do you know I need to rant?”

“You have this... fascinating tendency to tap your left index finger when you are about to start speaking uncontrollably. You need to ascertain my presence is stable. We need normalcy. A rant will do fine.”

“Oh my God,” Jim gaped, “say something long again. It’s making strange things in my brain. I haven’t heard your voice in so long. Anything, please.”

“Terran dragonflies create a combined shape when mating, similar to the human stylised representation of a heart.”

Jim laughed, delighted. “That’s... strangely romantic.” Spock squeezed him slightly, and Jim let his head rest back on his chest. “So I can rant at you? You’re fine with it?”

“I will listen gladly, _ashaya_. I too have not heard your voice for too long. You are not the only one in need of reassurance.”

Jim caressed Spock’s side with his thumb and pressed a kiss to his skin. “Okay then. Here we go. You asked for this, I’m not gonna stop. 

“So, Jazz is going to go crazy on you, get ready. Your mom gave her access to the VSA database, she downloaded a hundred and thirteen essays on this weird ass amphibious. She said she didn’t wanna tell me because I’m not expert enough. She’ll info vomit on you. It’s this strange little guy that kinda looks like a Terran axolotl, smiley and all-which, weird, because I keep imagining any Vulcan animals refusing to smile-and lives in this precise river, the name is a nightmare, I’m so gonna put it on the spelling test for the tutoring Vulcan class. I won’t count it, of course, I just wanna see the desperation in their faces and then the joy when they’re told it didn’t count.

“Your dad has been... kind of amazing. He’s very into Jazz, I can see it, he kept up the meditating exercises with her, assured me he was following your lead and not straying. I think he’s trying to make it up to you, in some weird way? With this trying to assure me thing, and caring for Jazz like you did. Really following your lead, you know? He sounded really impressed by her. And you. Oh, and she smiled in front of him and he didn’t bat an eye, can you believe it? He even justified her. He says she’s smart, that she’s got so much potential, that... he sees you in her. I think he has some apologising he wants to do. To you. Like many other people here, by the way. Oh, and he more or less tore her school to the ground, I don’t know how much you remember from when you were still... well. Unconscious. But he did. Really, he’s been great. Jazz likes him. She still likes you better, but she likes him too.

“And your mom? Your mom is such a gem. She’s just so incredibly clever. She can look past any of my bullshit. She can’t wait to talk to you. She’s so strong, taking care of Jazz and helping me with her, never faltering. I don’t know if Jazz gave them trouble, but I could bet she wasn’t an angel the whole time. They never let it weight on me. She said Jazz looks like me, which is just wrong, you know, Jazz looks exactly like T’Sharon. But it was nice to hear. I think she was the one who got me the VSA log in that Jazz is using. Oh God, and she’s so proud of you. You’re the light of her life. I can’t wait to see her face when she sees you. She’s going to apologise, I think, she already apologised to me so many times. They didn’t believe me. But I get why. I know I must have sounded crazy.

“Oh, Chris will probably apologise to you too. I was hard on him-don’t frown, I can feel you frowning in your head, he deserved it-and he’ll feel guilty for a while. He’ll probably start being hyper-protective with you too, which is just... cute. Can’t wait to see it. He didn’t believe me either, I think, but he brought me here. He put his whole career at risk. So you can give him all the hard time you want, but... I don’t think I will. He was great to me.

“By the way, I fixed the Vulcan food here for you. It sucked so much, I’m so sorry you had to eat it for so long. I made five dishes, it’s not much, I’ll add more when I can. And I want to upgrade the security. If there’s a breach or someone comes on board illegally, it’s way too easy to hack doors open. Did you notice? It’s worse than your door. I mean, it’s worse than your office door before you finally gave me something real to hack against. I won again, by the way. Went in to take your PADDs so I could bring them here just before leaving. So your move, Professor. Don’t hold back on me. Your PADD security, by the way? Shitty. I hacked in and changed your screensaver. You’re not allowed to change it back until you get a good firewall in. It’s self reinstalling. Because I’m a genius like that.”

“And you, _ashaya_? How are you?”

“Me? A little battered,” Jim admitted, “kinda tired. But as long as I’m with you and you have that screensaver on your PADD? I’m great. Oh, the screensaver’s definitely not suited for work, F-Y-I.”

Spock sighed. Jim smirked.

“Wanna hear the other ones I had in mind and was mature enough not to put?”

“Enlighten me.”

“Damn right I will enlighten you. Okay, so, the first one was my second favourite. Basically,“

  
Jim, despite his best efforts, succumbed to sleep one point seven hours later. The room they were staying in smelled strongly of disinfectants. It was also set to a temperature that must be hotly uncomfortable for humans, yet Jim had not complained. He had fallen peacefully asleep under the added layer of warmth of the covers, his warm skin against Spock’s, which meant, perhaps, that more of Spock’s sensations were passing to him than he meant. He hoped they were not all as uncomfortable as the cold.

The last time Spock remembered holding Jim like this, with this same smell surrounding them, Jim had not been breathing on his own. He had been grey and emaciated, pale and fragile, a stark contrast to his pink skin, flushed slightly red.

Spock had not believed in his own survival. He had hoped, in his last moments of consciousness, that McCoy’s drugs would end him without making him delirious. He remembered the pain, the torture, the long hours of being left alone with the droplets of acid destroying his skin, feeling himself lose all sense of time, begging for it. Praying for death, even inside the escape pod, his SOS signal lost in space and all the solitude to completely lose his mind.

He had believed he would never have this again. Jim, healthy and happy, peacefully asleep in his arms. Jim speaking quickly, almost out of control, all of his words candid, their preciousness shared with him. Jasmine, safely on Terra, staying with his own parents, who not only approved, but apparently encouraged their relationship. 

He was immensely tired. He did not wish to sleep. 

He had dreamed of this, had spent his last thoughts on this, on Jim, his voice, his eyes.

He was not ready to abandon this feeling, this concrete knowledge of Jim’s safety, the warmth of his presence, for mere rest. They were bonded, yes, yet he feared that the similarity of feeling each other while in the depths of sleep would bring negative associations, would make either of them wake up in throes of fear. 

“He’s out like a light, huh?”

Captain Pike was inside the room again, looking hesitant. Spock, remembering Jim’s words, knew this hesitation might be due to his self attributed guilt. “He is,” he said, “despite his mighty attempts to avoid it.”

“He’s had it rough, Spock,” the captain said, stepping inside slowly, looking at Jim and Spock alternatively, as if he still did not believe they were both there. It was a sentiment many must share. Spock and Jim foremost. “Back on Terra when he woke, nobody believed him when he said he could feel you. We all tried convincing him he was wrong. Had he not insisted,” the captain started, though he did not finish. Spock could finish for him, the logic required was not difficult. Had Jim not insisted on going, Spock would have died.

“Dwelling on the past is illogical,” Spock said, “ _kaiidth_. Jim did not obtain the Enterprise for this mission on his own.”

“I wouldn’t have looked further had he not asked,” the captain said. “And it will haunt me every day. We should have never let you go on that ship. We shouldn’t have stopped looking.”

“It was my understanding that my mind violently broke my parental bond with my father. Therefore, your choice of action was logical. I was presumed dead and Jim needed Jasmine.”

“Jim was already getting better.”

“I would not have had you risk his life over a technicality. It could have been a singularity. What happened, happened. It brought us all to safety. I do not blame you for taking the logical choice, Sir.”

“Your mother told me something very similar, you know?”

“Despite her humanity, my mother often behaves more logically than many Vulcans.”

“Yeah,” Captain Pike said, smiling, “yeah, she does. Mind if I sit here for a while?”

“Do not. Jim would not mind you moving his possessions so you could rest on the bed he was given. It is a far more comfortable option.”

“What is he doing with this damn thing?” Captain Pike asked, moving aside the pieces of the cleaning robot very carefully, not to ruin Jim’s work of selection.

“I have been asked not to tell,” Spock said. “In his words, it will be a ‘swell surprise’ for the engineering crew.”

“No doubt.”

Silence fell between them. Spock attempted to gather his thoughts into order, to explain his point of view and put the captain’s pain to rest. The captain was quicker.

“Look, Spock. I know what I did. I know it’s un-“

“If it is forgiveness you are looking for, Captain, do not ask of it. You have done nothing to forgive. You merely allowed me to carry out my plan. Without your permission and support, neither Jim nor I would be here, safe and together.”

“I’m still going to apologise, Spock, for the stars’ sake! You could barely walk, I can’t believe I let you be injected and go roam that ship on your own.”

“I was accompanied by-“

“You should have been on the Enterprise, coordinating the search from safety. Or, I should have gone with you. What I did... as a captain, as a father, as a man, it was horrible and selfish. Jim was right to scream at me. I’m so sorry, Spock. I’m sorry because what happened to you is my fault. We can be happy about the present and still regret the way we got here.”

“You did not force me, Captain. I went on my own free will.”

“Yes, but that’s the thing, Spock. Had an ensign been in your condition, you would have never let them go. You’re not just my friend, you’re my XO, you’re the man my son loves, a second father to Jazz. There are a thousand reasons for you to have been on that ship. There are more for me to have forced you to stay. Don’t say anything,” the captain added, when Spock opened his mouth to retort. “This isn’t a matter of logic, Spock. It’s a matter of sense. I’ll never stop feeling guilty. I needed to apologise to you. And I needed to tell you that I’m glad you’re okay. I’m so glad you’re both okay. You have... I don’t think you have any idea how much. You don’t need to say anything, Commander.” He paused, his hand still raised, and Spock kept his silence.”Rest, okay? You look tired. You need to get your energies up for tonight, because Jasmine will definitely call you and talk your ears off.” He smiled. “I’m really glad you’re okay Spock.”

“Thank you, Captain.”

Spock asked for a sedative to sleep. Doctor McCoy did not inquire as to his reasons, though he did tell him that it would very likely stop him from having or remembering dreams-good or bad.

It worked. When Spock woke again, it was late afternoon, and Jim was seated next to him, shirtless, slightly sweaty and working on the cleaning robot.

“Hi,” he said, without turning, “by the way, feeling you wake up through the bond is the most insane and amazing thing ever. It’s like... I don’t know. It’s great. I can feel you wake up! Incredible.” Spock brushed his arm against Jim’s side, just... just to further ascertain Jim was real. 

Spock was bonded to him. He was bonded to this wonderful, fascinating human, who actively used their bond, something Spock had known to be close to impossible, and lauded it. Who had cheated death twice, both for himself and Spock.

“Hello to you,” Spock said, reaching out with his mind, surrounding him, his most precious thing.

“I love when you do this,” Jim said, smiling, leaning back until he was laying next to him. 

“I shall do it more,” Spock answered. “Why is there so much quiet?”

“I activated privacy mode,” Jim said. “You were sleeping and I had to go to PT so I muted the barrier so nobody would disturb you.”

“Can they hear us?”

“Nope,” Jim said, smiling at him, “only if one of us starts dying.”

“How was Physical Therapy?”

“Hard,” Jim said, turning on his side so they were eye to eye and Spock could lose himself in the blue of his eyes. “I wanted to cry so bad. Nurse Chapel is such a bully when she wants to.”

“She appears well tempered.”

“Yeah, try pulling out your IV in front of her and see how she threatens you.”

“You like her,” Spock realised, finding himself... amused. “She kept you company?”

Jim shrugged. “She likes you, she tolerates me, we watched some holos together when you were too tired to speak through the bond and I was bored out of my mind.”

“I vaguely remember your impressions.”

“Yeah, they were bad, we spent half the time laughing about the plot. So,” Jim said, dragging out the vocal, and Spock raised an eyebrow at him, knowing some kind of request was coming. “Jazz is filling up my inbox. She really wants to talk to you. Are you... up for talking to her?”

“Jim,” Spock said, “what logical reason could make me unwilling to talk to her?”

“The fact that she’s with your parents? Whom, by the way, you weren’t ready to have me meet before stuff got complicated?”

“You have met my parents,” Spock said, “Jasmine, from your words, appears comfortable with them. I have no further qualms.”

“Do you want to meet them one at a time? I can ask them. Or you can, of course. I can leave, if want to speak to them alone?”

“I wish to see your daughter together,” Spock said, brushing his lips against Jim’s cheek, satisfied only when he saw his eyes hood in relaxation, “I wish to see my parents together. I wish you by my side, always.”

“You’re such a romantic,” Jim complained, and bent forward to give Spock a human kiss. “People should know how much of a romantic you are. I feel like less interns would cry when you get mad at them for recording data wrong.”

“I do not ‘get mad’.”

Jim sat up in his excitement, his eyes alight with glee. “You so do. There are face lines to prove it. I’ll take a picture next time. Write a thesis, maybe. Would that be enough to win a logical argument against you? Writing a thesis?”

“You will never ‘win a logical argument against me’, _ashaya_.”

“Huh,” Jim said, his eyes flashing with amusement. He bent down until their lips brushed again, and when Spock leaned up to unite them in another kiss, he moved back just enough to deny him. “Challenge accepted,” he whispered, and Spock surged up and bit his lower lip in retaliation, basking in Jim’s laugher.

Jim bent down again and kissed Spock’s nose with warm lips, his right cheek, his right temple, then settled with his forehead and nose pressed on the side of Spock’s face, his arms around him, shaking just enough for Spock to know what was happening.

“I am here,” Spock reminded him, circling Jim’s anxiety with his own calm, as thoroughly as he could. “All is well.”

“I know,” Jim whispered. “I just... Sometimes I just need a minute to let it set in. That we can do this. Laugh and kiss. Like- like before. Because we’re fine. Not... not dying anymore.”

“I find myself often experiencing the same marvel,” Spock revealed, turning his head to brush his own lips against Jim’s forehead. 

“We’re going to be fine, right? We’re just... tired, right?”

“I believe we are, yes.”

“I mean, you practically pulled a Lazarus and I have Nurse Chapel as my PT Trainer.”

“Yes, I see how yours is the more taxing condition.”

“Hey, don’t tease until you try. She’ll wipe the ground with you. My dignity’s still there, crumpled next to the treadmill where she walked all over it.”

“As usual, a striking metaphor.”

Silence fell. Jim’s shaking decreased. Spock caressed his skin, enveloped him further, offering all he could. It was not enough. As Jim could not assuage Spock’s fears with his presence, Spock could not assuage Jim’s. Not yet.

“Sorry, I... I need a few minutes before we call. I don’t think I could stop myself from crying if I saw Jazz right now and I don’t want to scare her while we’re still far away.”

“Take your time, _ashaya_. I will wait.”

  
Spock had believed nothing would ever make him more relieved than seeing Jasmine’s face live on Jim’s PADD, clear of cuts and bruises, lighted in an incredulous smile.

He had been wrong.

The Enterprise was docked. Doctor McCoy, Captain Pike, Spock and Jim were beamed down just outside his apartment’s building. 

Spock had wished to spend his recovery at Jim’s own place, where more sun was allowed through the windows and better memories would meet him. Yet, he had conceded to spend it at his own. It was bigger, the environmental control were built to better simulate Vulcan climate, it was closer to Medical, and it could host himself and Jim, Jasmine, and his parents in three separate bedrooms, so they would not be alone.

He had also wished to walk. He had been ready to argue, not wishing to cause fear or guilt in Jasmine’s eyes in seeing him on a bed or a wheelchair, but Jim’s terror when Spock had nearly fainted on his way to the gym had been enough to convince him not to insist.

And so they appeared. Spock, on a hoverchair, Jim, leaning against it, trepidatious to see her.

Jasmine’s face, Spock would never forget. He would carry her smile, her tears, her run, in his memories, always. 

Jim knelt and Spock leant forward just in time to catch her in their arms, hugging her close between them, murmuring sweet reassurances over her head, caressing her shakes away from her breaths. Spock spent every second of their two minute embrace with his heart filled with joy, relief, calm. The world had righted itself. 

He knew now, with utter certainty, that they would be fine. They would survive this.

All was finally, truly well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find a mistake, please point it out :)


	5. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise bonus chapter! Did I make you happy? I hope this makes you happy. You deserve it <3

Jim did not seem content with his performance in the Kobayashi Maru. 

The first time, he had spent the entirety of the evening with a frown on his face, periodically looking up from his cooking to look at Spock, though he had never voiced any questions. Jasmine herself had taken notice, and had asked him what was bothering him.

Jim had answered, “nothing”, and had asked her about her science project, knowing it would end up involving Spock more than him. Spock had let his slide go unspoken, and had listened to Jasmine’s explanation and answered all of her questions.

Spock had believed Jim to be angry at him. Illogical, of course, but human. He had believed his emotions would be externalised after Jasmine had retired for the night.

Instead, Jim had gracefully accepted Spock’s offer of chess, had played fairly and in silence, though occasionally looking at him with the same confused eyes again. Spock had believed his rancour would have at least shown in the bedroom, yet it had not. 

Jim, as he had done for every night of Spock’s recovery, had helped him wear the thermal suit Spock had needed to avoid hypothermia at night, the one Jim insisted was thicker than his own thermal suit for his survival training in the Antarctic.

The second time, Jim had entered the simulation room confidently and he had exited it looking rather satisfied. His results and scores had been better than the first time, though of course, he had still lost. It had not bothered him as much as losing the first time, though. As if he had been expecting it. Spock had initially believed Jim had understood the purpose of the test and had been satisfied of having obtained outstanding results, and then he had quickly reconsidered his opinion when Jim had hacked his office door two hours later, making it blare red, a predatory look in his eyes, and had informed him that Jasmine would be sleeping with Captain Pike for the night. 

The sex had been... outstanding. Hugging him from behind, their breathing still heavy and unrecovered, Jim had panted, surprising him, “you’re really a genius, you know that, right?”

“I am aware my intellect is above average,” Spock had replied, “as is yours.”

“I’m taking the test again,” Jim had said, settling on his back. Spock had turned, allowing Jim to pull the comforter over them both, and had rested his head on Jim’s shoulder, content to be held. 

“It would be the first time a cadet repeats the test thrice. Twice is already unusual.”

“I live to surprise,” Jim had said, and then he had kissed him, and they had not talked further that night.

The third time took longer. Jim had been scheduled in a date that he had been asked to give up to let other cadets go first, due to theirs being their first try. Jim had acquiesced. 

By the time the week of the test came, Spock had reached his physiological temperature again, and could sleep without clothing. 

They had been due to leave for Vulcan with his parents for two weeks, though Jim had asked him to reschedule. Spock had believed the request illogical-Jim’s score at the test was incredibly high, he had passed with flying colours, and the margin of improvement was not worth another try-though he had accepted. Watching Jasmine leave with his parents had not been easy for either of them, though a step they knew had long been coming. They could not cradle her forever.

They filled the void left by her absence with physical affection and many video calls. At the nearing of the test, Jim started looking tense-regretful, maybe. 

“She did not mind us staying,” Spock told him at breakfast, the day before, “she understands it is important to you.”

“Mh? Oh, yeah, I guess. Thanks, Spock.”

Despite the thanks, Spock’s words seemed to have the opposite effect he had intended. Jim, if possible, looked even more guilty.

“I shall be in my office all day,” Spock said, in an attempt to distract him, “you are sure you do not need assistance with your tutoring lecture?”

“I got it, thank you,” Jim said, smiling briefly, “anyway, the only one who’s really listening at my evening lectures is Uhura.”

“That must not be accurate. The students strongly approve of you you, your feedback questionnaires were eighty eight point seven-one-five percent positive.” Contrary to his, that were filled with complaints about the curriculum being too hard. Well. _Kaiidth_.

“It’s not me, it’s the timing. I never listen at lectures after 1900, either.”

“Is your Survival Skill 104 class not at that time?”

Jim shrugged. “I passed the 101, 102, and 103, how much else do I need to know?” Spock frowned and was ready to argue, already imagining Jim in the scenarios that class covered-lost in a tropical forest, attacked by a marine predator, trapped underground in a- when Jim chuckled. “I’m kidding, don’t worry. We record them and listen to them another time. We’re tired, not crazy.”

“The whole class shares your difficulty?”

“We’re all in Command Track, we all have classes from 0700 to 2100, we’re all in the same boat. Don’t make that face, I know you know what it means.”

“You should ask for it to be moved.”

“We tried, they told us we could have it on Saturday at 0800, nobody wanted to wake up early on a Saturday, so we’re sticking with this. Speaking of early classes, I have to get a move on. You’re coming with or going later?”

Jim still looked illogically guilty. “I am joining you.” Again, it had the opposite effect; Jim looked more uneasy. Spock could not logic the reason, he only knew he did not wish o leave Jim alone like this.

They did not discuss the Kobayashi Maru any further. Spock walked Jim to his first class and parted from him after a quick brush of fingers, then walked to his office. 

They had not agreed to meet for lunch, so Spock accepted an invitation from Nyota to eat with her in the labs while going over a peculiar transmission she had picked up the evening before. Jim, he supposed, would eat with Doctor McCoy.

Spock approved Nyota’s request for further investigation and suggested she include her findings in her thesis. He spent the afternoon marking papers and answering her questions, and was done at 1845. Jim had not wanted help for his lecture, though he had not asked specifically for Spock not to attend. 

He insisted it made him nervous and more prone to making mistakes, though Spock found watching him teach nothing else but a fascinating experience. Jim was highly involving, very attentive to the students’ moods; he could almost always successfully pinpoint the ones who were falling behind just by analysing their expressions. It was no wonder why their feedback was positive. It was further proof that Jim, a remarkable leader, would make a remarkable Captain. One he would be proud to serve under.

Spock arrived as Jim was setting up the projector with his slides. The students were a moving, flowing cacophony of voices, of greetings and complaints, and Spock let it wash over him, hoping that perhaps they would hide his presence. They seemed more unnerved by his attendance than Jim, thought that was to be expected. Spock was not a lenient teacher; he could not avoid their hesitation over his intention.

Jim, as usual, found his eyes immediately. Spock knew the drawing feeling, the way he always knew where Jim was, even inside the most populated rooms. It was pleasant. Deeply satisfactory.

“Settle down,” Jim spoke, his voice not yet amplified by the microphone and still managing to gain attention and have the students fall into silence. “We have a guest today, don’t let him scare you to silence: he’s not here to judge you; he’s here to judge me-even if he denies it. So, you guys can chill and ask all the stupid questions you want. If you have any difficult questions please email me so I can make a fool of myself in the privacy of written text and not in front of Professor Spock.” He winked, the students chuckled, and any tension was broken. Remarkable indeed. “Just kidding, just kidding. Ask anything you want; I once told Professor Spock I’d try to fight caffeine with chamomile. You can’t go lower than asking _that_ to a guy with multiple Biochemistry PhDs.”

Laugher again, and Jim smiled brilliantly, and Spock, although he had believed it to be impossible, fell even more in love with him.

“Okay, let’s start. A lot of you emailed me with questions about the chapter on High Vulcan translation for official gatherings, so we’ll go over that again. I’m not going to focus on the itty-bittys about poetry and songs-even if those things are cool as hell, go check them out or subscribe to Cadet Uhura’s new _Comparative Xenoliterature Club_ , it’s lit, I’m in it too-because a lot of you are on Communication or Diplomacy Tracks, so we’ll try and settle a good base for you poor fellows when the day comes that you have to speak to a Vulcan Ambassador in High Vulcan. So basically, today’s lesson is: being fancy! That’s right, it is a genius title, thank you for rolling your eyes at me, Uhura. I know it’s an expression of love. Peter, if that hand you’re raising is to ask me if the new club gives you extra-credits for the class, you can lower it. As I told you seventeen times, Professor Spock only accepts research essays or research proposals. Come on guys, PADDs open, here we go!”

Cadet Uhura had met Jasmine three weeks before, when she had found her sitting next to Spock in his office, working on her homework. Jim had not been happy with bringing her to the Academy, he still preferred to keep their private life a secret, especially since their bonding had been made known to the Admiralty through the medical reports of their respective rescue missions. They had not been able to avoid it, though; Spock’s parents had been on Vulcan, Captain Pike busy in meetings, and Jim busy with lectures he could not miss.

Jasmine had been elated-both for being there and for meeting Nyota.

Cadet Uhura, on her part, had drastically changed her opinion of Jim after discovering his parentage. She had also apologised for her antagonising behaviour in his class and had offered her first name to him, ending a conflict between them that, Jim had explained, had started back to their first day at the Academy, on the shuttle ride.

Their friendship had blossomed quickly, though Spock still did not understand it. She was polite with him and Jasmine, quite loving with the girl, in fact, yet still antagonising with Jim-though only in private. Jim insisted it was a companionable antagonising. Spock, being the matter outside of his area of expertise, just assumed he was right.

Nyota had been added to Jim’s crew in the Kobayashi Maru simulation, and to Jim’s words, she had made a very helpful addition. 

Spock assumed that was what they were discussing, both bent over Jim’s PADD as the other students left the lecture hall, speaking and nodding in turns. Therefore, he stayed seated.

They were not long.

“Thank Gaila again for checking it, okay?” Jim told her as they climbed the steps up to his seat, smiling at him.

“I will, for the thirtieth time, don’t worry. I still think you’re crazy.”

“I’m starting to feel the same way,” Jim said, looking at Spock with a shade of the same guilt he had carried around him at breakfast. When they reached his level, he shook it off and smiled at him again. “So, how did I do?”

“Again, I am not here to evaluate you, Jim.”

Jim hummed, unconvinced. “Nyota, how did I do?”

“Passably,” Nyota remarked, elbowing him slightly. “You only mispronounced five words. There’s room for improvement.”

“Five words? Nuh-huh, no way. Which ones?”

“Oh, I’m not telling you. You live with two Vulcans, you can work it out. If not, well. I have one more feedback questionnaire with your code on top to send to HR.”

“See, Spock? Be like her. She’s honest about her intentions. Which are, getting my job. And my kid, probably.”

“She likes me better than she likes you.”

“Since you translated _Pride and Prejudice_ in Klingon for her? A hundred percent true. I can’t compete with that. Actually, can you adopt me too?”

Nyota laughed and shook her head. “No deal, you’re way too messy. Have a good night, you two. Spock, I’ll email you about my results tomorrow, regarding that transmission. Jim suggested an idea and I think it will work out.”

“Very well,” Spock nodded, “enjoy your night, Nyota.”

“Sleep well, I want you super awake tomorrow.”

“Will do,” Nyota said, rolling her eyes. “Good night!”

“Night!” Jim called after her, then turned to him with a wink. “Take out for dinner?”

“I am agreeable to the idea.”

“Great, I’m starving. Come on, before the cleaning bots lock us in.”

Jim seemed to work out any remains of his guilt out of his system in their walk to the hovercar. They had moved back to Jim’s apartment, leaving his own for his parents when they felt the wish to visit. The night was cold, submerged in mist, yet pleasant.  
Their coats kept the chill away, and their entwined hands served the good purpose of exchanging affection and endearments as they went.

His hand melding innervation had come back a few weeks before. It was not as functional as it had been before, but it was functional enough. It was more than either of them had hoped for, and Doctor McCoy was short-listed for one of the most prestigious medical awards in the Federation for the growth factor he had developed to obtain the result.

Jim drove, which was often a source of worry, though he appeared to be in no rush, and the ride was relaxed. The food, after they collected it, filled the vehicle and their apartment with its spicy steams.

“What did you suggest Nyota do with the transmission?” Spock asked, setting the food on the table, watching Jim enter the living room changed out of his uniform.

“Oh,” Jim said, surprised, “it’s just, the whole thing tickled something in my memory, I told her to run it through the old subspace database to see if it ever happened before. I think it did, but I can’t pinpoint it.”

“You do not believe it to be a one time event?”

Jim sat at the dinner table and smiled his thanks when Spock held out his orders. “No? I mean, I don’t know. The whole thing’s strange, you know. Klingons asking for help. And I have this feeling I can’t really grasp, it’s weird. I’ll think it over tomorrow, after the test.”

“It is a peculiar happening,” Spock agreed. “We shall see.”

“Did you catch Jazz today?”

“I spoke with her,” Spock said. “She was with my mother, playing the piano.”

“Oh no, can’t believe I missed that! I barely managed to get two minutes with her, she was running after this insect in your parents’ garden, she more or less threw the PADD at your dad the moment it was polite enough to do it.”

“My mother recorded her. She will undoubtedly send us the holo.”

“Oh, bless her, that’s great. Hey, where’s that spicy dust I like?”

The night passed amenably. Before settling to sleep, they made love twice, slowly and holding each other tight. Some nights were like that, filled with the shared need to be reminded that they were close, and healthy, and away from peril, being held shy to bruising and using it to settle themselves in this miraculous, happy reality.

“Spock?” Jim asked, warm and pliant in his arms, as they were basking in the afterglow of their shared love.

“Jim.”

“You’re sticking with me, right? Even if I hypothetically make something really, really stupid that might hypothetically make you really, really mad?”

“Will said hypothetical thing put our family in peril? Or anybody else?”

“No?”

“Then proceed, if you must.”

“Hypothetically proceed.”

Spock sighed. “Hypothetically, yes.”

“Really, just like that?”

“I trust you, Jim. Even if I cannot see your reasons, I promise I will always hold my judgement before you can explain. You would do the same for me.”

“Wow, you’re perfect. How are you so perfect? It’s unfair. Be less perfect.”

“I shall try my best.”

  
Jim had a survival training class early next morning, so Spock woke up alone, his warmth long gone from the blankets. He had, however, left him breakfast in the refrigerator and the keys to the hovercar.

He reached his office earlier than expected. Jim’s test at 0900 was the first item of his calendar for the day, so he spent the spare time reading the news feed and more of Nyota’s results.

When the clock on his digital desk read 0850, the light on his doorknob turned green and Jim entered, dishevelled and slightly panicky, pocketing his key.

“Jim? Why are you-?

“I need to tell you something before we go. It’s important that you know it.” His eyes were reddened and lucid, Spock realised. He had cried.

“Jim, you look unwell. Are you sure-“

“What? No, no I’m fine, very fine, I’m just- I’m emotional and nervous. Please, just listen, okay? I need to get this out.”

“Very well.”

“Look, I know what the purpose of the Kobayashi Maru is. I know it’s supposed to be about fear of death, and what a captain will do when faced with its certainty, how they will handle it, and how they’ll handle the crew. I know that, I know you created it because any training in the world cannot make you cheat death, and you want every cadet to be ready for that possibility. I know it’s a no win scenario.

“And I know death, Spock. I know what it is. I know how it feels. I was born into it, I see my father’s face in the mirror every day and I’m reminded that his scenario had no outcome where he could live. I know that. I know his best choice was- was death.

“And-And I saw you die, Spock. I watched you die three times. And every time, I felt it, deep into myself, and I was forced to see a universe where I had to live without you.   
And now you’re here. You’re here, and you’re alive, and I get to wake up next to you every day and having this history, my history, hurts a little less every time. 

“But... if I had believed in no win, scenarios, Spock, you wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be here. If I had believed in them, when they told me and told me again and again that you were dead, that I was only feeling ghosts, that I was crazy, that you were dead and I should just lie down and accept it, I- I wouldn’t have gone looking for you.

“So- so, I don’t believe in no win scenarios. And I think you don’t believe in them, either. Every doctor said that you being alive after so long was impossible because that drug should have killed you. They all said they have no idea how you did it. But I know. I know how you did it. You did it for me. You did it because the only acceptable possibility was coming back to me.

“I can’t believe in no win scenarios. Do you... do you get what I’m saying? I can’t believe in them, any of them, not even simulated, because if I do it once, maybe- maybe I will do it again. And maybe that time, your life, or Jazz’s life, or my crew’s life will be on the line, and I might give up trying, might be too afraid to leap without looking and save them.

“So, I can’t believe in them. I can’t believe that there’s something in this universe that could tear us apart. I can’t believe a world exists where I didn’t go looking for you. I can’t believe that there’s a scenario where we don’t fight for each other, where we might give up. Where we don’t get to be back together at the end. I can’t. And I won’t.

“So, just... remember this. Don’t- don’t follow me, think this over. Please, think this over and remember it, okay? I will... I will see you after it’s done.”

  
“How the hell did that kid beat your test?”

Spock looked down. Jim’s mind was a turmoil of satisfaction and doubt, happiness and fear, insecurity and confidence.

 _I can’t believe in no win scenarios_.

How had Jim managed to beat a simulation that could not be won? Was that why he had been feeling guilty? He had... cheated? That seemed out of character.

A hypothetical thing that was really, really stupid and might make him really, really mad.

Barging inside his office as he had barged inside Captain Pike’s months and months before, the day they had really met, looking afraid and small, his eyes red, having hacked- no.

Spock’s doorknob had flashed green, not red. Jim had pocketed his key. 

Jim, for the first time ever, had not hacked his door.

“Commander? The kid! How the hell did he beat your test?”

Jim had left him all the clues.

Spock looked down, hidden by the mirror glass, and yet Jim instantly met his eyes, both confident and unsure.

Spock breathed. Allowed his lips to curve slightly. “I do not know.”

“So what are we doing? Do you want to open an investigation? Sir? Sir!”

“Leave the console, please,” Spock asked, and moved to the vacated seat, followed perfectly by Jim’s eyes.

He opened the code that had taken him months to write. Scrolled down, down, down. 

Stopped.

Jim had not even tried to be discreet. It was as obvious as his own signature, the lines of code, elegant and simple, altering his own, insinuating a specific subroutine that had brought him to victory.

 _Magnificent_ , Spock told him, raising his eyes back to Jim’s.

_Am I being expelled?_

“I have found the reason,” Spock said. “Ensign, I believe this calls for a commendation.”

_You are not._

“A commendation?! He- he hacked a test! He cheated!”

_I’m not? Seriously? Why do you sound so smug?_

“Two commendations. Critical Thinking and Original Thinking.”

_No reason, Cadet Kirk._

“For hacking a test?!”

_So what, I’m suspended?_

“I agree with Commander Spock,” Commander Stamsyl said, sitting at the console the moment Spock freed it. “Just- wow. Look at this code! This is brilliant! Why is he on Command Track and not on Computer Sciences?”

_You are receiving a commendation._

“Let me see, Jake,” Lieutenant Commander Trok’l asked, bending over his husband’s back. “How the hell did he think of this? This is brilliant, absolutely brilliant! Maybe we can get him to publish this as a new way of coding, or implement it in our ship simulators. It’s so clean! Damn, the kid has skills.”

_I’m what?_

“So we’re really giving a commendation for hacking our best test? Really?!”

_And you are being proposed._

“We are giving a commendation for fighting relentlessly against death,” Spock said, “for leaping before looking, using all of the means at one’s disposal to complete the mission and save the crews. Is that not what Starfleet is about, Ensign?”

_Proposed?_

“I agree as well, Commander,” Commander Brohn said. “This kid has to be encouraged, not punished. We need more people like him.”

 _Indeed_.

“Shall we vote, then?” Spock asked, feeling Jim’s trepidation mirrored in his own chest. “Four in favour, one against. Cadet Kirk will receive the Commendation for Critical and Original Thinking, as well as full marks.”

_Wait. Are you asking me what I think you’re asking me? Are you really asking me to-_

_Marry me_.

  
The end

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find a mistake, please point it out :)

**Author's Note:**

> So here we are, at the end of this journey. Completing my first fic was an emotional moment. Writing 'the end' made me a little sad, but alas, nothing lasts forever (apart from Spirk, Spirk lasts forever). Thank you to the silent readers, to everyone who left kudos, everyone who commented, to everyone who asked for more, to everyone who told me their favourite part, to everyone who complimented my writing, to everyone who shared their hopes over how this would end, to everyone who took the time to tell me how my story made them feel (special love to you guys). Every single one of you made the last three chapters happen. 
> 
> PS: Do they save Vulcan? I mean, their kid is there. Of course they do. No but seriously, I've always believed that Star Trek 2009 could have seen Vulcan saved if only the Admiralty had heard Jim's theory from the start. And now, with Pike and Spock on his side and no academic suspension, already comparing Uhura's findings with the Starfleet database? I'm feeling positive vibes :)
> 
> Thank you again for everyone's support. Come chat on Tumblr if you feel like it :)  
> All my love to you <3


End file.
